Washington, April 28: Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates has said that the US government is falling short in preparing itself and the world for the "significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes".
Gates, in an interview earlier this week, said that he raised the issue of pandemic preparedness with President Donald Trump since the 2016 presidential election, the Washington Post reported.
Gates said he laid out the increasing risk of a bioterrorism attack and stressed the importance of US funding for advanced research on new therapeutics, including a universal flu vaccine which would protect against all or most strains of influenza.
He said that he told Trump that the President had a chance to lead on the issue of global health security. Trump encouraged him to follow up with top officials at the Health and Human Services Department, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, Gates said.
"This could be an important first step if the White House and Congress use the opportunity to articulate and embrace a leadership role for the US."
Gates said he met several times with Trump's former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and also wanted to meet McMaster's replacement John Bolton.
"...I think we've got to push this ... with the executive branch and Congress quite a bit," Gates said. "There hasn't been a big effort along these lines."
He, in a speech before the Massachusetts Medical Society on Friday, also announced a $12 million Grand Challenge in partnership with the family of Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page to accelerate the development of a universal flu vaccine.
Gates and his wife, Melinda, repeatedly warned that a pandemic was the greatest immediate threat to humanity. Experts said the risk was high, because new pathogens were constantly emerging and the world was interconnected.
According to several experts, the US is underprepared for a pandemic or a bioterrorism threat.
The government's sprawling bureaucracy, they said, was not nimble enough to deal with mutations that suddenly turn an influenza virus into a virulent strain, like the 1918 influenza did in killing an estimated 50 million to 100 million people worldwide, the daily's report said.
"If a highly contagious and lethal airborne pathogen like the 1918 influenza were to take hold today, nearly 33 million people worldwide would die in just six months," Gates said, citing a simulation done by the Institute for Disease Modelling, a research organization in Bellevue, Washington.
"Even the best tools in the world won't be sufficient, if the US doesn't have a strategy to harness and coordinate resources at home and help to lead an effective global preparedness and response system," Gates said.
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RSS mouthpiece Organiser's article claims Catholic Church surpasses Waqf Board in landholdings: Repo
Thiruvananthapuram: An article in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece Organiser has stated that the Catholic Church of India holds more land than the Waqf Board, which has long been believed to be the second-largest landowner in the country.
The article, titled "Who has more land in India? The Catholic Church vs Waqf Board Debate," as cited by The New Indian Express, challenges the commonly held view and asserts that the Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental landholder in India.
"For many years, there has been a common belief that the Waqf Board is the second largest landowner in India after the government, however, this claim does not align with the actual data on land ownership in the country. The Catholic Church of India holds the distinction of being the largest non-governmental landowner, possessing vast tracts of land spread across the country,” the article stated.
The Church is said to own approximately 17.29 crore acres (7 crore hectares) of land, with an estimated value of Rs 20,000 crore.
The article further noted the significant influence of the Catholic Church in India’s real estate landscape, listing scores of schools, hospitals, nursing colleges, and other institutions under its management. “As of 2012, the Catholic Church has 2,457 hospital dispensaries, 240 medical or nursing colleges, 28 general colleges, 5 engineering colleges, 3,765 secondary schools, 7,319 primary schools and 3,187 nursery schools in the field of education and healthcare sector in the country. Much of its land was acquired during British rule. In 1927, the British administration passed the Indian Church Act, facilitating large-scale land grants to the Church," it added.
However, the Organiser article also raised contentious issues, alleging that some of the Church's land acquisitions might have been questionable. It suggested that the Church’s charitable services, particularly in education and healthcare, could be a way of luring economically disadvantaged individuals into converting to Christianity, with some reports claiming that tribal and rural landowners were coerced into converting in exchange for Church-run services.
“Several cases have surfaced where tribal lands, once belonging to indigenous communities, were gradually transferred to Church authorities under various pretexts," the article stated.
This published write-up comes at a time when BJP leaders, particularly in Kerala, are celebrating the passing of the Waqf Amendment Bill, which they have described as a "gift" to the Munambam protesters, who are led by the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, Organiser has deleted the article after it was published.
Article deleted but RSS mouthpiece @eOrganiser forgot to delete the tweet https://t.co/CTjvIwFeor pic.twitter.com/cFIT3can5J
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) April 5, 2025
