Get our daily coronavirus email newsletter with all the news you need to know direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Bill Gates has warned the world that it faces a global pandemic every 20 years unless more is done to help tackle deadly diseases such as coronavirus.

The billionaire philanthropist, 64, said that the growth of world travel means that the threat from virus pandemics is higher than at any time in history.

The Microsoft founder has long warned of the treat from highly-infectious diseases and has spent millions of his personal fortune helping to prepare developing countries for such a scenario.

Speaking in a video interview with the Financial Times, he said: "This is the biggest event that people will have experienced in their entire lives."

(Image: REUTERS)

"There is a meaningful probability, what lots of global travel, that one of these things will come along every 20 years or so and so the citizens expect the government to make it a priority."

He also said rich countries should support the developing world’s fight against the virus.

“The impact of those dollars on helping things not completely deteriorate, helping hold things together, helping accelerate that vaccine manufacturer - I think the case on that will be compelling.”

Gates, who set up the Bill and Melinda Foundation to help tackle issues such as health and equality, did say that he believed that lessons would be leaned from the crisis.

(Image: Youtube)

(Image: Getty Images)

“There’s no doubt, having paid many trillions of dollars more than we might have had to if we’d been properly ready, people will [prepare]. Because it affected the rich countries . . . we’ve been whacked on the head.”

"This time we've been whacked on the head here at home people, we know the science is there... countries will step forward."

More than 1.5 million people have been reported infected by the novel coronavirus across the world and 89,474 have died.

Infections have been reported in 212 countries and territories since the first cases were first officially identified in China in December 2019.

When the World Health Organisation was alerted to a mystery new illness in China on New Year’s Eve, only a handful of people had fallen ill.