Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has pledged to donate $10 billion that will be used for the research and development of new vaccines. The donation, part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will fund the initiative to bring new vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.
Bill Gates has also requested governments and other businesses to contribute as well and added that the aim will be to immunize 90% of children against critical diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia in poorer countries.
“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” Bill Gates said in a statement. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”
The current donation pledge for vaccine research more than doubles the $4.5 billion that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have donated over the last 10 years.
An estimated 7.6 million children aged below five will benefit from vaccines over the next 10 years. The foundation also added that an additional 1.1 million children could be saved by introducing a vaccine by 2014.
The donation pledge from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation was welcomed by Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization. She praised Gates for the unprecedented contribution and called for support from governments and other contributors as well.
An effective way to improve the public health system of any country is provide vaccination to children. Melinda Gates expressed this perfectly by saying “Vaccines are a miracle, with just a few doses; they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime.”