PM, Bill Gates pledge to continue cooperation in Covid, polio fight

Discuss coronavirus response, resumption of anti-polio campaigns

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday spoke to Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates to discuss the latest situation on Covid-19 response and resumption of polio vaccination campaigns in Pakistan.

During the conversation, the prime minister apprised Gates about the improved Covid-19 situation in Pakistan with considerable reduction in new cases and the fatality rate.

He shared that the “smart lockdowns” policy of the government has proven to be very effective. The timely and prudent interventions enabled the government to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 on health and economy and successfully averted a larger catastrophe.

PM Imran acknowledged the Gates Foundation’s continued support to Pakistan in combating Covid-19 outbreak. He noted that the repurposing of polio infrastructure played an important role in the pandemic response and affirmed that the eradication of the crippling disease was the top priority of the government.

Gates acknowledged Pakistan’s efforts to combat the pandemic while protecting the lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable population and pledged to continue cooperation on shared priorities with Islamabad.

Earlier, the billionaire philanthropist also appreciated Pakistan’s efforts to combat the coronavirus, saying that the way the country controlled the pandemic, flattened its curve and has no match anywhere in the world.

In an interview with CNN, Gates said that Pakistan worked hard to bring the number of cases down, adding that Pakistan fought the pandemic successfully, when compared with India and Europe.

“One would admit that Pakistan achieved this success thanks to its excellent expertise,” he noted.

Gates’s remarks came as the coronavirus in Pakistan continued to remain under control, allowing three provinces – Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to lift almost all the pandemic-related restrictions.

Gates discussed why the US was still struggling to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Two of the main issues, he said, were a failure to shut down and a lag in testing capabilities.

“It’s mind-blowing that you can’t get the government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is,” Gates said. “You’re paying billions of dollars in this very inequitable way to get the most worthless test results of any country in the world,” he added.

He reiterated that he expects the US to largely get through the pandemic by the end of next year as therapeutics and a vaccine become available. Gates’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had pledged more than $350 million toward Covid-19 research, much of that for developing a vaccine.