Bill Gates has warned that we might not have experienced the worst of the Covid pandemic and a more deadly variant could emerge.
The billionaire philanthropist said he did not want to sound all “doom and gloom” but there is a risk of an “even more transmissive and even more fatal” variant emerging.
He also predicted that the risk of a deadly variant propagating is “way above five per cent”.
The Microsoft founder told the Financial Times: “We’re still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal.
“It’s not likely, I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom, but it’s way above a 5 per cent risk that this pandemic, we haven’t even seen the worst of it.”
The tech mogul previously gave a talk in 2015 claiming the world was “not ready for the next epidemic” and that viruses pose the greatest threat to mankind.
He has also called for a team of experts - costing around $1billion - that would be managed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to spot and prevent future pandemics.
He said: “The amount of money involved is very small compared to the benefit and it will be a test: can global institutions take on new responsibilities in an excellent way, even in a time period where US-China [relations are] tough, US-Russia is extremely tough?”
His warning comes as director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the world needs to remain cautious about the virus amid a drop in overall testing.
