FILE PHOTO: Bill Gates, Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, attends a conversation at the 2019 New Economy Forum in Beijing, China November 21, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
(Reuters) - Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates called for COVID-19 drugs and an eventual vaccine to be made available to countries and people that need them most, not to the "highest bidder," saying relying on market forces would prolong the deadly pandemic.
"If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidder, instead of to the people and the places where they are most needed, we'll have a longer, more unjust, deadlier pandemic," Gates, a founder of Microsoft, said in a video released on Saturday during a virtual COVID-19 conference organised by the International AIDS Society.
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