Bill gates participates in Tokyo conference to end malaria and AIDS

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates Wednesday participated in an international health conference, which seeks to raise funds to wipe out malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.

Global Fund, the organizer of the international symposium in Tokyo, seeks financing for speeding up the eradication of these diseases, a cause for which Gates donated $1.3 billion last year.

AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are diseases that flourish through poverty and discrimination, according to Global Fund, an organization that unites several governments, companies and members of civil society in their fight against these diseases.

The twoday symposium is also being attended by World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan, health ministers of several countries, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Canadian Minister of International Development, MarieClaude Bibeau.

More than 400,000 people succumbed to malaria in 2015, around 37 million people are known to be carriers of the AIDS virus, and tuberculosis accounts for the highest number of deaths from an infectious disease, according to the World Health Organization.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe inaugurated the conference, which includes universal healthcare in its agenda, and called for a strong response from public international bodies against health crisis such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014.