NEWSWEEK: What’s going to be the next big thing in treating worldwide diseases?

TAYLOR: As much as I love science, we mustn’t lose sight of good old-fashioned public health interventions. Everyone is waiting for a vaccine, a magic bullet. We can’t stand still waiting. Vaccines for malaria, TB and AIDS are years away.

What about when the vaccines do come through?

Vaccines bring their own challenges. They’re not always 100 percent effective. For HIV, we will want to reach young-adult populations, not children. That requires different infrastructure. The development we do now will really matter when we do have a vaccine.

What’s the best way of preventing these diseases?

We’ve been working with companies to develop new models of access to care for communities, using the backbone of business operations: the workplace. We have been involved both at the global-policy and the country-operational levels with getting anti-retrovirals and other forms of prevention and treatment to workers and families of multinational companies around the world, particularly in Africa. This is really important because the private sector, with its skills at implementing and innovating, is going to lead the charge of the international community’s vision of having 3 million people on anti-retroviral drugs in the next three years. Business can do it.

Why is it important to get businesses involved?

You have to remember that the world’s best tablet is useless if it doesn’t get to the persons who need it. We’re working on a system that makes sure that more people have access to the tablets, or the education, or the other interventions that they need.

What technologies other than drugs can help solve the most pressing health problems?

New ways of making bed nets that can better protect people from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Finding a way to give anti-AIDS drugs in developing countries using directly observed treatments: instead of using high-tech lab equipment, you just make sure patients swallow their medicine every day. It’s an extraordinary idea because it means people can take AIDS drugs in the middle of the bush. It’s not quite that simple, but that’s the vision.

Are we making progress?

I don’t think we have a choice. If we don’t make a difference we will have failed as a society.