Bill Gates is calling for a new global task force to keep an eye out for future pandemics, claiming that the World Health Organization has less than 10 full-time people monitoring outbreaks

Bill Gates stated that more funding is required to prevent future pandemics. Image Credit: Ryan Lash / TED

Insider News: Bill Gates has proposed a new global pandemic surveillance unit, claiming that the World Health Organization currently has "less than 10 full-time people" on the lookout for dangerous new viruses.

Long before COVID-19 arrived, the Microsoft cofounder was urging countries to take the threat of a global pandemic more seriously, warning viewers of a 2015 TED Talk that the world was "not ready" for a deadly outbreak.

Gates told the Financial Times ahead of the release of his new book, "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic," that his proposed "Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization" initiative should be managed by the WHO.

The task force was proposed by the billionaire philanthropist to monitor global health emergencies and coordinate responses across countries. According to him, the epidemic response team could be made up of experts such as computer modelers and epidemiologists.

According to Gates, the WHO had fewer than "ten full-time people" preparing for future outbreaks prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, and "even those people are distracted with many other activities." "The current WHO funding is not at all serious about pandemics," Gates said in an interview with the Financial Times.

"We're still at risk of this pandemic spawning a variant that's even more transmissive and fatal," he added. "It's not likely, and I don't want to be a downer, but it's way above a 5% chance that this pandemic, we haven't even seen the worst of it."

To prevent future pandemics, Gates stated that more funding is required: "It seems incredible to me that we could look at this tragedy and not make these investments on behalf of the world's citizens."

"There's still a chance that this pandemic will generate a variant that is even more transmissible and fatal."

Since COVID-19 began wreaking havoc around the world at the start of 2020, the WHO has been criticized, with critics claiming the organization did not do enough to warn the world about the virus's dangers early on.

When former President Trump proposed cutting US funding for the WHO in 2020, Gates responded on Twitter, writing that "halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds."

The WHO did not respond to Insider's requests for comment right away.