Bill Gates says Donald Trump should not call antibody cocktail a ‘cure’ for Covid-19
But billionaire admits that Regeneron drug is ‘most promising’ one available
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Your support makes all the difference.Bill Gates says Donald Trump is wrong to call the coronavirus antibody cocktail he received a “cure” for Covid-19.
The Microsoft co-founder admitted that the Regeneron drug given to the president was “the most promising” one available but warned that it did not work for all patients.
"The word 'cure' is inappropriate because it doesn't work for everyone," Gates told NBC’s Meet the Press.
“But yes, of all the therapeutics, this is the most promising.”
The billionaire philanthropist also said that if the monoclonal antibody treatments can be approved for emergency use they would “save more lives than the vaccine will.”
The US has now seen more than 220,000 deaths from the virus and more than 8 million cases.
Mr Gates says he hopes that antibody treatments will be given emergency use authorisation in the next few months.
But he warned of the dangers of the president pushing regulators to speed up the timeline.
“You don't want politicians saying something should be approved because it's wrong to think of political pressure as needing to be appropriate in these cases," said Mr Gates.
He also said that the majority of vaccines will become available in 2021, with the Pfizer and BioNTech ones possibly being ready by the end of this year.
“The phase three data is the key thing, particularly for the safety, making sure we're not seeing side effects,” said Mr Gates.
“So the tool is ramping up and, over the course of the first half of the year, those volumes will get to the point where we really will be asking Americans to, you know, step forward.
"The effectiveness could range, you know, could be as low as 50 per cent or as high as 80 per cent or 90 per cent and, different of the vaccines, some will fail completely and others will hit a very high bar. But we don't know yet.”
Mr Gates also said that the US could still turn its difficult coronavirus situation around and offered advice on how to achieve that.
“Don't say that the FDA is being pressured to do something so that their integrity is clear cut," added Mr Gates.
“And then, you know, on the vaccine front, get it to everyone with the right message, including get it to the world so the disease isn't constantly coming back in our country.”
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