Bill Gates on health care: First on Yahoo Finance at Davos

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is focused on global health care and funding for vaccines for children in need. Former Microsoft (MSFT) President and CEO Bill Gates joins Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the current state of worldwide health care.

It's all part of Yahoo Finance's exclusive coverage from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where our team will speak to top decision-makers as well as preeminent leaders in business, finance, and politics about the world’s most pressing issues and priorities for the coming year.

State of world health care (00:00:00)

"I'm a little worried. The world's dealing with a lot of challenges right now, and the fact that we still have 5 million children die before the age of five. It isn't as visual. It's not like a plane crashing or a bomb hitting a building," Gates said. "And we have made progress. At the turn of the century, that number was 10 million. Vaccines are a big part of that the last few years with the pandemic our progress is plateaued ... health deserves to be on that agenda, particularly health in the poorest countries."

Tech innovations (00:01:22)

"You're probably familiar with this instrument when it's connected up to, like a $20,000 box here, we're getting the cost to be in the $400 or $500 range, and we're actually putting a lot of software with it so that as you scan a pregnant woman, you can say, okay, will this delivery be challenged," Gates explained. "So you have to get to a health center, or will will it be an easy delivery? And so we can prevent about 50% of maternal death by being able to tell in advance will there be problems."

Pandemic preparation (00:04:02)

"We need to invent new tools. You know, our vaccine doesn't last long enough. It doesn't provide broad enough protection. It doesn't block infection. It's a miracle in terms of preventing severe disease. But we didn't get it as soon as we'd wanted to," Gates said. "You had to wait to get diagnosed. And that meant that people were still spreading the disease. A few countries did that well, and they had a much lower death rate ... And then we need to staff the global organization so that we do fire drills ... pandemics needs to be added to that list of something that when it happens, you're ready to go."

Editor's note: This article was written by Zach Faulds.

Video Transcript

BILL GATES: I'm a little worried the world's dealing with a lot of challenges right now. And the fact that, you know, we still have 5 million children die before the age of 5, it isn't as visual, it's not like a plane crashing, or a bomb hitting a building, and yet these deaths one by one add up to that 5 million.

And we have made progress. At the turn of the century, that number was 10 million. Vaccines are a big part of that. The last few years with the pandemic our progress has plateaued. And in fact, if we don't maintain attention, if we don't fund this vaccine fund that's been the most effective spending of $8, we could actually see that number go back up.

So staying on the-- for anything to stay on the agenda is hard, health deserves to be on that agenda, particularly health in the poorest countries.

JULIE HYMAN: And of course, a lot of the work you do at the foundation is marrying tech and innovation with some of these really thorny problems like health. You have brought a couple of items that sort of combine scientific--

BRIAN SOZZI: Carrying backpack too.

BILL GATES: Yeah.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah. He's got his backpack. Just shows-- I mean, a lot of these things are portable, they're small, they're easy to carry around. So I just wanted to give people examples, right, of what we're talking about. So this here is an HPV single dose vaccine. Talk us through what that is.

BILL GATES: Yeah. It's kind of amazing vaccines often start in the rich world, even if the need is everywhere. This HPV protects women from cervical cancer. And when it started out, we knew that three doses would work, but the foundation funded a lot of studies that showed that the vaccine is so good that a single dose is enough for full protection. And that means we can reach a lot more women twice as many as if it was a two-dose vaccine. So that's a very new thing.

The other show and tell we've got, you know, you're probably familiar with this instrument when it's connected up to a like a $20,000 box. Here we're getting the cost to be in the $400 or $500 range, and we're actually putting a lot of software with it so that as you scan a pregnant woman, you can say, OK, will this delivery be challenged so you have to get to a health center, or will it be an easy delivery? And so we can prevent about 50% of maternal death by being able to tell in advance will there be problems.

BRIAN SOZZI: What is-- when you're traveling around the world and you're bringing this technology to these lower-income countries, what are some of the biggest barriers that you see? Is it just a cost? Is it the doctors, the number of doctors on the ground, or is it just all the above?

BILL GATES: Well, basically, most people don't get to see a doctor. And so you want to make it so even somebody without full medical training because the software is doing the analysis. In the US, a very-- or any rich country, a very well-trained person has to look at this image data and try to figure out what they're seeing. We avoid that completely because it would never work in places like Africa.

Keeping the funding for primary health care is as the African countries have financial challenges. They're paying higher interest rates, it's a tough cycle for them. And so it's got to be very inexpensive technology.

JULIE HYMAN: And what about policy? Is that a barrier as well in some countries?

BILL GATES: You know, getting countries to adopt new technologies, you know, when we can show that, for example, the vaccine works in a single dose, we do get quick takeup. We work with people like WHO that set global standards. We're a very substantial funder of the work that WHO does.

BRIAN SOZZI: There's been some-- there's been some talk initially here that the world remains still unprepared for the next pandemic. Do you agree with that?

BILL GATES: Oh, absolutely. The speed at which we've lost attention on what we need in terms of systems and tools is rather stunning. You know, people have gone to, hey, I'd rather not talk about it and of course, looking back and saying, OK, we made some mistakes, you know, what did we learn what we would do next time there's not enough of that happening.

JULIE HYMAN: What do you think needs to be done then on that front?

BILL GATES: Well I wrote a book in order to push on this. I'd say I've learned a lot since then. We need to invent new tools. You know, our vaccine doesn't last long enough. It doesn't provide broad enough protection. It doesn't block infection. It's a miracle in terms of preventing severe disease. But we didn't get it as soon as we'd wanted to.

Diagnostics, you had to wait to get diagnosed. And that meant that people were still spreading the disease. A few countries did that well and they had a much lower death rate. The sewage sampling where you could actually see the virus in a population, we need to have that up and running all the time so that we see these things way quicker than we would otherwise.

And then we need to staff the global organization so that we do fire drills. For fires, we do drills. For military war games, we do drills. Sadly, pandemics needs to be added to that list of something that when it happens you're ready to go.

BRIAN SOZZI: Are you surprised by a lot of the talk on vaccine fatigue. And this is, I think, primarily really focused on the United States.

BILL GATES: Well, sadly the fact that the pandemic raised a lot of misinformation about vaccine and increased vaccine hesitancy, that's not just in the United States. You know, vaccines are phenomenal. You have to work to build trust in that because it's kind of not intuitive that you stick a metal needle in a child's arm and they cry. And that's the most important thing to make sure they don't die of measles or dozens of other diseases.

In fact, we're using vaccines to actually eradicate polio. By getting enough vaccines out, we'll make that a disease that completely goes away, which, you know, just shows that if we accept vaccines, we get them out, fund them, it's pretty phenomenal.