Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Monday said that India’s research and manufacturing will be critical to fighting COVID-19, especially for making vaccines on a large scale, news agency PTI. Gates was addressing the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020, where he delved upon the difficulties in vaccine development and diagnostics of COVID-19.

“And now, India’s research and manufacturing will be critical to fighting COVID-19 especially when it comes to making vaccines at large scale,” PTI quoted Gates as saying.

Gates said scientists all over the world are involved in a particular ‘grand challenge’ — ending the current pandemic.

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He said researchers are breaking down silos and rather than waiting to go through the publication process, they are sharing data on a daily basis. “Since the pandemic began, scientists have shared 137,000 viral COVID-19 genomic sequences,” the Microsoft Corp co-founder said.

Even the pharmaceutical companies are cooperating on production ways that really have never been seen before, he added.

Talking about the challenges in vaccine development, he said mRNA vaccine is an area where many have seen “great promises”.

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“Probably, the first approved vaccine for COVID-19 will be mRNA,” he said but added that the vaccine cannot be counted on alone because it is very hard to scale up and has a logistical problem because it requires a proper cold chain.

Gates expressed hope that the mRNA platform matures in the years ahead so that its vaccines can be scaled up that can bring down the costs as well the cold chain requirement.