Philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates told CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria that the latest that the world would probably see an effective novel corona virus vaccine would actually be within the next 18 months, squelching rumors of a vaccine by December of this year.

Bill Gates and his foundation pledged 270 million dollars for the development of an anti-COVID 19 vaccine. Gates says the development of such a vaccine lies on so many factors, including scaling down the manufacturing side and ensuring that the third and fourth phases of the vaccine are done without a hitch.

Many countries, including China, Russia and the United States are competing against each other for the honor of being the first country to put out an effective vaccine against this pandemic.

This novel corona virus had infected 1.6 million people around the world and caused the deaths of 210,000 people.

Recently New Zealand had announced the eradication of the novel corona virus in their country.