Melinda Gates: 25 years of vaccine gains reversed during COVID-19 pandemic

Melinda Gates said in a new interview that 25 years of advances on vaccines have been reversed during the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Twenty-five years of increased vaccinations that have saved children’s lives all over the world was set back in 25 weeks,” Gates told “Axios on HBO” in a segment that will air on Tuesday. 

Gates made the remarks while discussing the findings from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual Goalkeepers report. 

She added that the pandemic also reversed gains made in other areas, including poverty. 

“Basically, eight months of COVID reversed gains in almost every category that had been made steadily over the last couple of decades,” Gates said in the interview. 

She called the reversal on poverty “devastating,” adding that 37 million people fell below the $1.90 a day international poverty line. 

“It’s the difference between being able to put food on your table or not put food on your table and go hungry,” she said. 

Gates also stressed investments in primary health care, education infrastructure and women’s issues.