Seth Berkley on the importance of vaccinating the world
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr Seth Berkley is an epidemiologist and global health leader whose career has been shaped by one central problem: vaccines save lives, but only if people can actually get them.
His 40-year career has spanned the global, from helping to build Uganda’s first HIV surveillance system and founding the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; to leading Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for more than a decade – overseeing the immunisation of hundreds of millions of children worldwide. And when COVID-19 struck, Seth co-founded COVAX, the global initiative designed to stop wealthy nations monopolising vaccines.
In conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Seth discusses the highs and lows of his globe-trotting career - from saving millions of young lives through vaccine distribution, to setting his own shattered leg after a climbing accident in Namibia - and addresses the huge challenge of tackling vaccine scepticism.
Presented by Jim Al-Khalili. Produced by Lucy Taylor. A BBC Studios production.
Transcript
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| 0:24.3 | With What's Up Docs. |
| 0:25.8 | And Complex with Kimberly Wilson. |
| 0:27.9 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | You're about to listen to the latest series of The Life Scientific. |
| 0:34.4 | Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts, but if you're in the UK, |
| 0:39.9 | you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days before anywhere else, first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:47.9 | Hello, from building a makeshift chemistry lab in his wardrobe as a child, and years later |
| 0:53.9 | setting his own shattered leg after |
| 0:56.0 | a climbing accident to more recently raising billions of dollars to help vaccinate the world during |
| 1:01.3 | the COVID pandemic. Dr Seth Barkley has never been one to do things by halves. Seth's career as an |
| 1:07.5 | epidemiologist has revolved around one big problem, |
| 1:14.6 | that vaccines save lives, but only if people can get them. |
| 1:17.7 | His four decades in the field have taken him around the world, |
| 1:21.2 | from helping to build Uganda's first HIV surveillance system and founding the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, |
| 1:25.0 | to leading Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for more than a decade, overseeing |
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