Bill Gates on pandemic preparedness
From Bill Gates on COVID-19, Climate Change, and Our Economic Future · · U.S. Chamber of Commerce
“the actual cost of being ready for the next pandemic is not gigantic you know if you look at the precautionary measures where we spend on our defense budget you know this won't be more than about one percent of that even our overall health research budget you know the overall cost of what we the u.s needs to do will be about 10 percent of that”
On , Bill Gates, Co-chair of Gates Foundation at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke about pandemic preparedness during Bill Gates on COVID-19, Climate Change, and Our Economic Future on U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
About Bill Gates
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, faced renewed scrutiny in February 2026 following the release of Justice Department documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. The documents included draft emails, apparently written by Epstein to himself, containing graphic and unverified allegations about Gates. Gates denied the claims in interviews, stating that he only attended dinners with Epstein, never went to Epstein's island, and never met any women through him. He said he regretted every minute spent with Epstein and apologized for the association. His ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, said in response to the documents that questions about the allegations were for her ex-husband to answer, not her. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, Gates focused on global health and artificial intelligence. He announced a $50 million partnership between the Gates Foundation and OpenAI called "Horizon 1000," which aims to deploy AI tools in 1,000 primary healthcare clinics in Africa, starting in Rwanda. Gates described the initiative as a way to improve healthcare quality and efficiency by using AI to reduce paperwork and help patients communicate in their local languages. He also warned that global health funding cuts had led to an increase in childhood deaths for the first time in 25 years, with 4.8 million children under five dying in 2025 compared to 4.6 million the year before. Gates said the U.S. aid cuts were "abrupt and cruel" and expressed hope that funding would be restored.