Bill Gates warns of the effects of "Corona": 25 weeks set us back 25 years

US billionaire Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has said that the Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted progress in fighting poverty and disease, and pushed it back decades.

A report published by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, today, Tuesday, warned that the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic have pushed global progress in the field of health back 25 years, and put millions at risk of deadly disease and poverty.

Extreme poverty increased by 7% due to the outbreak of the virus, according to the annual report issued by the foundation.

The data also shows that the economic ramifications of the pandemic reinforce inequality, with women, ethnic minorities, and people living in extreme poverty particularly affected.

In addition to declining regular vaccination rates, which it said "set the world back 25 years in 25 weeks," the report said, inequality is entrenched with increasing levels of poverty and economic damage as a result of the pandemic.

The report, which Bill and Melinda Gates has been preparing every year since 2017, calls for global cooperation in developing diagnostics, vaccines and treatments, rapid manufacture of tests and doses, and equitable distribution of those tools based on need rather than ability to buy.

"This is a common global crisis, and it needs a common global response," they wrote.

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