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What has COVID-19 taught you about disease and how do you think the world needs to prepare for pandemics in the future?

We need to look to having a better, safer, and fairer world post COVID. We need to be better prepared, we need to ensure every person has genuine access to health care, we need to structure our societies so we reduce the things that increase the likelihood and severity of pandemics, e.g. overcrowding, marginalisation, inequity and last but not least we have to look after the health of our planet- climate change, the animal world, our forests.

What has COVID-19 taught the scientific community about working together and collaborating to achieve goals?

Right from the start the scientific community came together- heeded the call WHO made when we activated the R&D Blueprint in the first week of January 2020- and worked tirelessly, together sharing ideas, discoveries and information- in true solidarity. The fruit of this solidarity is now evident- good diagnostic tests, we know about which treatments work and of course we now have vaccines. Vaccines are giving us a second window of opportunity to bring the pandemic under control. We must not squander it.

If we truly work together- build on the solidarity so many have shown, we will beat this together. But we are at a critical juncture, much depends on staying the course and working together- and continuing to apply the traditional public health measures while rolling out the vaccines, fairly, and appropriately to the highest risk groups first, in every country on the planet.