Bill Gates pledges $10 billion for vaccines

Gates Foundation pledge

At last week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, revered business tycoon and founder of computer software giant Microsoft, Bill Gates, announced with his wife Melinda, that they will commit $10 billion over the next decade to help research, develop and deliver vaccines for the world’s poorest countries.

According to Mrs. Gates, who announced the initiative last Friday, the vaccines are now the "number one priority" of the Gates Foundation because of the "incredible impact" they have on children’s lives. Bill Gates added that the next 10 years must be defined as "the decade of vaccines."

Prevention better than cure

The boost comes after a model (used by the Foundation and) developed by a consortium led by the Institute of International Programs at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health stated that significantly scaling up the delivery of vaccines in developing countries could prevent the deaths of some 7.6 million children.

Of course, that would take some major ramping up of vaccines, to as much as 90 percent coverages, but the Gateses are confident that this is achievable. In fact, Mr. and Mrs. Gates hope that their pledge, which comes on top of the $4.5 billion the Foundation has already committed to this area, will help this become a reality.

In addition, the report also suggests that 1.1 million more children could be saved with the rapid introduction of a malaria vaccine beginning in 2014, which brings the total number of potential lives saved to 8.7 million. This adds even more clarity to Bill Gates' need to call this decade The Decade of the Vaccine - given that the introduction of even more vaccines by the global pharmaceutical industry could save even more lives

The business of vaccines

In fact, much of the drive behind the pledge has been driven by the remarkable progress made by vaccines in recent years. According to reports, Mr and Mrs Gates said their pledge "has been inspired" by global vaccination rates, which have now reached all-time highs from years of decline in the 1990s.

They also noted that many of the recent advances in vaccine development and delivery have been driven by public-private partnerships such as the GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) and the Rotavirus Vaccine Program at the Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), which coordinates the resources and expertise of vaccine companies, donors, the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and developing countries. These partnerships are "transforming the business of vaccines," said Mr Gates.

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