How to Prevent the Next Pandemic

In 2015, the American technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates warned that humanity wasn't ready for a pandemic. Seven years on, as the world emerges (hopefully) from a pandemic for which it wasn't ready, he thinks we have it within our power to make sure this one was the last. There will be more disease outbreaks, but we now possess the tools and the knowledge to prevent them from becoming global catastrophes. Gates's optimism is refreshing after the gloom of the last two years. ... The roadmap he lays out sounds feasible. It involves strengthening disease surveillance and strengthening primary healthcare systems around the world ... Gates's proposals are wise, and his goals should be our goals.

New Statesman, Laura Spinney

In this concise and lucid book, global health activist Gates reflects on the current COVID-19 pandemic, considers future ones, and renders several sensible recommendations for prevention . . . Passionate but never preachy, Gates delivers an expert, well-reasoned, and robust appeal for the world to unite in averting upcoming pandemics.

Booklist

Gates is good at guiding readers through his blueprint for the technological, economic and regulatory fixes to stop the next pathogen from causing global havoc, never assuming too much knowledge. ... His book is punctuated with powerful examples from personal experience. ... How to Prevent the Next Pandemic ... couldn't be more timely, with thousands still dying daily. As he writes, "once covid is no longer an acute threat, don't forget about what it has done".

Adam Vaughan, New Scientist

if this book stimulates even a little limit-pushing of the sort Mr Gates suggests, it will have served its purpose well.

Economist

His last book was about climate change, that other issue which, along with pandemics, he considers "existential" for mankind. ... Now, with the same can-do, roll-up-the-sleeves attitude, he lays out, step by step, the system that needs to be put in place to prevent another - potentially far more deadly - pandemic.

Harry de Quetteville, Sunday Telegraph

Gates delivers a thoughtful exploration of how lessons learned from Covid-19 can inform future global public health policies. In accessible prose, he spells out steps for preventing future pandemics, among them creating a global task force dedicated to doing so . . . Gates is realistic about what he's up against . . . but he does a good job of making [the task force's] $1 billion price tag seem reasonable.

Publishers Weekly

In How to Prevent the Next Pandemic he applies his technocratic approach to preparing the world for future public health emergencies. That means building early warning systems that could identify novel illnesses when they first start to circulate in human populations; developing better treatment and vaccine technologies that can quickly tackle brand new pathogens; and optimising processes and building manufacturing facilities that could quickly mass-produce things like medicines and rapid tests in times of emergency. At the heart of Gates's plan is a new institution he calls Germ (Global Epidemic Response and Mobilisation), composed of a few thousand experts - from epidemiologists to vaccinologists to diplomats - who would be on standby in case of a global threat. In between emergencies, this group would go around the world to strengthen pandemic-prevention infrastructure and encourage governments to keep spending on things like disease-monitoring and scientific research. None of the ideas in the book are radical; indeed, scientists have been arguing for some version of all them for several decades. But, given who is making the recommendations, people with the power to make change might finally listen.

Alok Jha, Guardian Books of the Year