Gates’ Fund to Give $750 Million to Vaccinate Children
Microsoft founder and multibillionaire Bill Gates on Tuesday announced that his charitable foundation will give $750 million over the next five years to try to improve the health of young children in underdeveloped nations, his biggest annual philanthropic gesture yet.
The total amount of the immunization project is less than the $1 billion that Gates pledged three months ago to provide full college scholarships to academically qualified minority students in this country, but that endeavor is scheduled to last for the next 20 years.
Gates’ announcement, made in Seattle, is the latest of several moves he has made recently to divert some of his enormous fortune--by all accounts he is the world’s wealthiest person--to charity, something that some philanthropic groups have said he has been too slow to do. It also comes as his technology empire has been under fire in the courts.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Washington issued a preliminary ruling that Microsoft Corp. is a monopoly in the computer industry that is unfairly squelching competition and harming consumers with its business tactics. A final decision on the case, which could radically change the exploding industry, is expected next year. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is encouraging the Justice Department and Microsoft to settle.
Gates and his wife, Melinda, have often expressed interest in aiding the cause of children’s health and already have given more than $100 million to groups working on that issue in poor countries. The latest gift dwarfs all previous ones and will be focused on expanding immunization programs around the world.
By some public health organization estimates, 4 million children die each year of illnesses that could be prevented if they were vaccinated in time. And in some Third World countries, it can take a decade or more for vaccines to reach the children who need them the most.
“Melinda and I are committed to ensuring that every child has access to lifesaving vaccines in the next millennium, regardless of where they live,” Gates said in a statement released by his foundation late Tuesday. It had been planning to make an announcement later this year, but word of the pledge apparently leaked.
Gates said he expects the project to be underway and to begin purchasing and distributing vaccines to children in about eight months. A new coalition called the Global Fund for Children’s Vaccines will be formed as part of the plan.
Its partners will include the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Bank. Foundation officials also said they expect to work closely with governments in an attempt to ensure the program does not get mired in politics or bureaucracy.
Besides buying vaccines, the alliance will use the fund to encourage governments, businesses and individuals to provide the money needed to make global childhood immunization a reality.
The fund also will support research to develop vaccines for AIDS, malaria and other diseases for which they are not now available.
Carol Bellamy, the executive director of UNICEF, praised the undertaking. “Today’s commitment by Bill and Melinda Gates is a major step forward in ensuring that all children will have equal access to lifesaving vaccines,” she said in a statement.
James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, called Gates’ gift a “tremendous boost” to one of the most difficult goals in public health.
Officials of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said that they expect other large donations to the project. They said more details about the $750-million immunization fund will be made public early next year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The Gates Foundation has assets totaling about $17 billion, officials said.
Gates’ personal fortune is estimated at $77.5 billion
