Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Pledges $10 Billion to Fund Vaccines in Developing Countries

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a pledge of $10 billion to fund vaccines for children in developing countries.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on January 29 2010

Today at the Davos Conference in Switzerland, multi-billionaire, philanthropist, and Microsoft magnate Bill Gates made a stunning announcement: his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will commit $10 billion over the next decade to fund vaccine research, development, and treatment for children in developing nations.

According to a model developed by the Institute of International Programs at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Gates Foundation’s incredibly generous donation could have the potential to save the lives of 8.7 million children under the age of 5 through the coming decade. Because some of the money will go towards creating vaccines for diseases that currently lack them, such as tuberculosis, the invention of effective new vaccines could save even more millions of lives.

“Vaccines are a miracle—with just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime,” Melinda Gates said at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting. “We’ve made vaccines our number-one priority at the Gates Foundation because we’ve seen firsthand their incredible impact on children’s lives.”

The Gates Foundation is the world’s largest private foundation, with more than $35.1 billion in endowment funds. To learn more about the remarkable work that the group is doing, check out their website.

Filed under: Health and Wellbeing, Heroes, Non-Profits,

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