You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on BBC World Service, me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is arguably one of the most important figures in global public health today.

Seth Berkeley is CEO of Gavie, the Global Vaccine Alliance,

which over two decades has helped vaccinate close to a billion children in the world's poorest countries

and thereby saved millions of lives.

Berkeley is a medical doctor and epidemiologist by training. countries and thereby saved millions of lives.

Berkeley is a medical doctor and epidemiologist by training.

He's worked in 50 countries and devoted special attention to the fight against HIV-AIDS.

But right now, it is COVID-19 that is central to his work.

Gavi is one of the key players in the COVAX initiative, a collaboration with the UN and World Health Organization, which is supposed to ensure that COVID vaccines are not

just procured by the world's rich countries, but are also delivered to the poor and disadvantaged.

The motivation isn't just humanitarian. As we've seen, the virus is no respecter of

national borders. Thus far, though, there's little sign of a truly collective, collaborative

vaccination effort. While the UK, for example, has already given a first dose to close to 30%

of its population, including all of

the most vulnerable, many poorer countries have yet to receive any vaccine at all. Vaccine

inequality is a problem, which will leave all of us vulnerable. So how do we fix it? Well,

Seth Berkeley joins me now from Geneva. Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to have you. I'm going to begin, if I may, with some words from the

World Health Organization Chief, Dr. Tedros. He said recently that the me-first approach to vaccine procurement that he sees around the world

represents a, quote, catastrophic moral failure. The price of this failure, he says, will be paid

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