Senior Adviser to the Pandemic Center, Adjunct Professor of the Practice in the Department of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health
A serial entrepreneur and pioneer in global public health for more than 35 years, Dr. Berkley has been a champion of equitable access to vaccines and of innovation, and a driving force to improve the way the world prevents and responds to infectious disease. From 2011 to 2023 Berkley served as CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. During his tenure at Gavi, Berkley led a team that worked toward broadening global immunization access, resulting in more than half of the world’s children being vaccinated annually. His leadership was equally significant in co-founding and spearheading COVAX, an initiative that facilitated the distribution of over 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to 146 nations.
As a senior advisor to the Pandemic Center, Dr. Berkley joins an interdisciplinary team that takes a holistic approach to pandemic preparedness. His global health leadership experience will bolster the Center’s efforts to build resilience to biological threats around the world and help mitigate their impact.
Vaccination is one of the most successful global health interventions in history, eradicating or eliminating some of the deadliest diseases through decades of coordinated effort. But that success is increasingly under pressure. Trust in vaccines has declined globally, fueled by the proliferation of misinformation and growing politicization of public health, making rising vaccine hesitancy one of the defining global health threats today.
In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with Dr Seth Berkley, infectious disease epidemiologist, former CEO of Gavi, and co-founder of COVAX, about what the world got right and wrong during COVID-19.
They discuss vaccine equity, pandemic preparedness, the politicisation of public health, and why the world remains dangerously vulnerable to future outbreaks. From the rapid development of mRNA vaccines to the rise of vaccine disinformation and the growing threat of H5N1 bird flu, this conversation is a sobering reminder that pandemics do not end just because societies stop wanting to talk about them.
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.
The United States has supported the World Health Organization (WHO) since its inception, playing a central role in its 1948 creation because it ultimately served American interests, despite the entity’s well-known flaws. Heavily influenced by the post-war notion that universalism was the best corrective to yet another devastating global conflict, 20th century leaders in the U.S. understood that improving global health and containing emergencies were desirable outcomes in and of themselves and would directly reduce health threats to Americans. At the time, the U.S. also recognized that building and maintaining an effective global health infrastructure was beyond its lone capacity. Because no one could predict where new infections would emerge, the world required a truly global surveillance and response system. Through WHO, the U.S. leveraged funding sources far beyond its own substantial monetary contributions and granted U.S. experts access to countries otherwise hostile to American initiatives. U.S. withdrawal from the organization on 22 January 2026 and from other international health partnerships, such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance—which I led from 2011 to 2023—makes achieving America’s interests more difficult, especially as the current administration dismantles much of the country’s other public health infrastructure.
(TNND) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is refusing to review Moderna’s application for approval of an mRNA-based flu vaccine, the latest step taken by the administration that might chill the use of the technology that was key to the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
COVID-19 offered a difficult lesson about the devastation a virus can bring to our world. In his latest book, Fair Doses: An Insider's Story of the Pandemic and the Global Fight for Vaccine Equity, Dr. Seth Berkley provides us the fascinating backstory of vaccines: how they came about, why they’re important, and how they have been made globally available. But our quest for vaccine equity remains ongoing. Dr. Berkley, an internationally-recognized infectious disease epidemiologist, offers an insider’s view of the challenges of developing and disseminating vaccines for a broad swath of illnesses, from Ebola to AIDS to malaria and beyond.
Seth Berkley, MD, is an infectious disease epidemiologist currently advising vaccine, biotechnology, and technology companies, and is Adjunct Professor and Senior Adviser to the Pandemic Center at Brown University. He co-founded COVAX, a global vaccine initiative; and founded and served as CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.COVID-19 offered a difficult lesson about the devastation a virus can bring to our world. In his latest book, Fair Doses: An Insider's Story of the Pandemic and the Global Fight for Vaccine Equity, Dr. Seth Berkley provides us the fascinating backstory of vaccines: how they came about, why they’re important, and how they have been made globally available. But our quest for vaccine equity remains ongoing. Dr. Berkley, an internationally-recognized infectious disease epidemiologist, offers an insider’s view of the challenges of developing and disseminating vaccines for a broad swath of illnesses, from Ebola to AIDS to malaria and beyond.
Seth Berkley, MD, is an infectious disease epidemiologist currently advising vaccine, biotechnology, and technology companies, and is Adjunct Professor and Senior Adviser to the Pandemic Center at Brown University. He co-founded COVAX, a global vaccine initiative; and founded and served as CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
