Microsoft founder Bill Gates has announced a $12 million Grand Challenge to fund the research work on universal flu vaccines before the occurrence of the next flu strain.

Bill Gates said, "The goal is to encourage bold thinking by the world's best scientists across disciplines, including those new to the field.”

In the pilot phase, individual grants would be provided which would range from $250,000 to $2 million over two years. An additional $10 million may be provided if project is promising in animal studies but that money won’t be the part of this funding round.

Bill Gates further added, "I'm the super optimist, pointing out that life keeps getting better for most people in the world; here is one area, though, where the world isn't making much progress, and that's pandemic preparedness. This should concern us all, because if history has taught us anything, it's that there will be another deadly global pandemic."

The past 20 years had come across the spread of diseases like severe acute upper respiratory syndrome (SARS), swine flu (H1N1), Ebola and Zika. Hence there arises an increasing risk of bioterrorism.

Gates further added, "That's the sobering news; the good news is that scientific advances and growing interest on the federal level, in the private sector and among philanthropic funders makes development of a universal flu vaccine more feasible now than 10 or 20 years ago; specifically, we need better tools, an early detection system and a global response system; as I said at the start, I'm fundamentally an optimist, and that gives me hope that we can get prepared for the next big pandemic," Gates said.