It sounds like a lot of money, but it will pay for itself when we are able to facilitate the return to a normal kind of working life and economy. Our investment would support Cepi's mission to provide successful vaccines fairly and affordably.

We can help boost vaccination rates around the world, but we can also change the dial at a basic, research level. The development of vaccines is still largely based on a 200-year-old technology, and we have vaccines for fewer than 30 diseases. As well as Covid-19, effective vaccines against HIV, malaria and TB would be transformational.

Then there are the emerging infectious diseases that have been identified just since the 1940s – more than 320 of them. We will fund new approaches to vaccine development, including RNA and DNA vaccines. These contain the genetic instructions to make proteins found on the surface of a disease-causing viral or bacterial cell. When the body is given the genetic vaccine, its cells read the instructions and make these proteins. This stimulates the immune system to mount a response, so provides protection if the real pathogen is ever encountered. The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are both RNA vaccines.

If we can create a universal flu vaccine, we would be protected from what is still one of the greatest health threats to our species: the emergence of a flu pandemic. It's the thing we were worried about when coronavirus came along, and perhaps the fact that Covid-19 was caused by a coronavirus and not an influenza virus is what wrongfooted the response of some governments. The development of a universal flu vaccine is therefore vital, and would help counter the rise of antimicrobial resistance. The evolution of superbugs immune to treatment, the problem of antibiotic resistance, is another item on the WHO threat list. Each year more than 1.5 million people die because the thing infecting them is resistant. It's a problem that could easily escalate.