Gates announces grant for vaccines
SEATTLE – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Monday it would give a second $750 million grant to support children’s immunization programs in developing countries, saying the money it gave in 1999 was the single best investment the foundation has made.
The 10-year grant will support the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), and will be distributed through The Vaccine Fund. During the same international teleconference about the grant, the organization also announced a new commitment from Norway of $290 million.
Melinda Gates, foundation co-founder, noted that in 2002, 1.4 million children died in the world from diseases that have been virtually eliminated in the United States and could have been prevented in other countries through vaccination.
She said the Geneva-based alliance aims to reach 90 percent of the world’s children with vaccinations during the next 10 years and to distribute between one and three new vaccines during that time.
“It’s clear vaccines are the best investment the world can make in terms of children’s health,” she said.
The money will buy vaccines and improve distribution systems worldwide to help prevent diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), measles, tuberculosis, polio, hepatitis B and yellow fever.
The alliance’s board chairman, Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, praised the donation Monday, saying people in developing countries will benefit enormously.
“These large contributions will help save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and prevent immense suffering and disability over the coming years,” Jong-Wook said in Geneva.
About 2 million people still die each year of infectious diseases that could have been prevented through basic vaccinations, said Jong-Wook, who is director general of the World Health Organization.
World health is one of three major focuses of the Gates Foundation, created five years ago by Melinda Gates and her husband, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates. The foundation has since become one of the world’s major philanthropic organizations.
In addition to supporting the alliance, the Gates Foundation has made substantial grants toward developing new vaccines, including giving $82.9 million last year to fund research and testing of more advanced vaccines to fight tuberculosis, the leading killer of people infected with HIV.
Gates said the grant to the alliance should have the side effect of encouraging vaccine companies to continue development and production of vaccines for the 70 poorest nations of the world, fighting illnesses that have been all but eliminated in more developed nations.