Oxford’s Plan to Better Prepare for the Next Pandemic

Hi everyone, it’s James in London. This week I talked to Sarah Gilbert, who led the development of Oxford’s Covid vaccine. She’s now joining other scientists in a new initiative to try to prevent a repeat of all the death, misery and economic turmoil we’ve endured over the past two and a half years. But first...

Covid exposed the vulnerabilities of health systems all over the world, highlighting a need to expand disease surveillance, tackle misinformation and speed up work on vaccines and therapies to fight a slew of both known and unknown pathogens. And while the Oxford-AstraZeneca team, Pfizer and others delivered Covid shots in record time, less affluent regions struggled to gain access as wealthy nations put their own interests first. Production was concentrated in just a handful of countries.