Next Pandemic Could Be More Lethal Than COVID, Vaccine Creator Says

Future pandemics could be even more lethal than COVID-19 so the lessons learned from the pandemic must not be squandered, one of the creators of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine said.

"This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods," Sarah Gilbert said in the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, the BBC reported. "The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both."

"We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness," she said. "The advances we have made, and the knowledge we have gained, must not be lost."