Professor Jim Al-Khalili
speaker
535 appearances
4 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 15 Jun
Professor Jim Al-Khalili’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, for your job at Gavi, Seth, you and your wife, Cynthia, moved your young family to Switzerland.
And one of your big early tests was in the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Tell me about that.
As you say, it really did turn out to be important groundwork because in late 2019, there were rumblings of a new super virus coming out of China, which is when you, Gavi and various other collaborators swung into action to launch COVAX, an initiative to ensure equitable access to COVID vaccines.
How did that come about?
Well, what you achieved in that strange period of lockdowns and anxiety all around the world was actually quite remarkable, wasn't it?
And of course, you were still CEO of Gavi.
But after a decade, you decided to step down in 2023.
How did it feel to walk away after such an intense period?
Yeah.
Well, as we've already discussed, Seth, it's a very different world today compared to when you started your career.
We've spoken before on this programme about how misinformation and distrust are undermining global vaccine efforts.
In fact, a major study, partly funded by Gavi and published in The Lancet last year, found that routine vaccination coverage globally had actually stalled and even reversed.
How would you like to see that tackled?
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned a loss of trust in science.
Of course, last year, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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