Singapore president predicts future pandemic after Gates Foundation announcement

Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF), believes that the next pandemic is a foregone conclusion. He made his remarks the day after it was announced the Gates Foundation will be setting up an office in the Asian city-state.

During a high-level networking dinner hosted by Singapore’s Temasek Foundation on May 6, Tharman claimed that scientists believe that the next major pandemic is a matter of “when,” and not “if.” Moreover, the next pandemic could happen either next year or in ten years’ time.

The dinner was held during the Philanthropy Asia Summit 2025, which took place in Singapore from May 5 to 7. According to the summit’s website, “the 2025 Summit theme, ‘Priming Asia for Good,’ planned to discuss “solutions, innovations, and actions in Asia to address global challenges across the interconnected areas of climate, education, and health.”

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), was among the guests who spoke at the Summit.

President Tharman claimed at the dinner that the world stands on the brink of forgetting the lessons learned during the outbreak of 2019, with complacency, wishful thinking and insularity being the greatest challenges,

The world has to deal creatively with that challenge and “avoid further polarization,” he added in remarks cited by The Straits Times (ST).

“We have to do so through arrangements that appeal to nations’ sense of self-preservation, and which recognize the practical reality that we can prevent and prepare for the next pandemic only through a major step-up in internationally coordinated investments and actions,” he continued...

In 2023, the Singapore government amended the country’s Constitution to permit the president to accept foreign and international appointments (such as WEF membership) in their private capacity, under the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment No. 3) Bill.

Meanwhile, based on amendments made in 2023 and 2024 to Sections 47, 65, and 67 of Singapore’s 1976 Infectious Diseases Act (IDA), people who refuse to get vaccinated when directed to do so by the government could be considered criminals.