Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on Monday repeated calls for polio eradication and expanded childhood immunization.
\nIn his third annual letter, a personal account of his priorities, released on Monday, he also called on governments to invest in foreign aid, even in the face of a tough economic climate. \u201cIf societies can\u2019t provide for people\u2019s basic health, if they can\u2019t feed and educate people, then their populations and problems will grow and the world will be a less stable place,\u201d Gates writes in the letter, according to a statement released by the Foundation to the GNA in Accra.
\n\u201cWhether you believe it is a moral imperative or in the rich world\u2019s enlightened self-interest, securing the conditions that will lead to a healthy, prosperous future for everyone is a goal I believe we all share.\u201d
\nMr Gates also emphasised the need to continue improving U.S. schools, and urged more leadership, innovation and investment for issues like maternal and child health, malaria, HIV\/AIDS and agriculture.
\nHe focused on polio eradication as a key example of the value of vaccines. Thanks to a global childhood immunization campaign, polio has been reduced by 99 per cent, and is on the threshold of becoming only the second disease ever eradicated. \u201cGetting rid of polio will mean that no child will be paralysed or die by this disease,\u201d said Mr Gates. \u201cAny major advance in the human condition requires resolve and courageous leadership. We are so close, but we have to finish the last leg of the journey.\u201d
\nNew donations to polio were announced last week from the U.K. government and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, which will reduce the gap of $720 million that is needed to fully fund polio eradication efforts through mid-2012. A recent study estimated that eradication could save the world up to $50 billion due to reduced treatment costs and gains in productivity.
\nMr Gates released his letter with a speech at the historic Roosevelt House, the former New York home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, where the future president recuperated after being stricken with polio at age 39.
\nRoosevelt and his law partner Basil O\u2019Conner later launched the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, whose March of Dimes campaign mobilized the country against polio and raised millions of dollars to support the search for an effective vaccine. Polio once threatened children worldwide, but there are now just four countries where polio has never stopped circulating \u2013 Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.
\nLast year saw remarkable progress in Nigeria and India, where polio cases dropped by about 95 percent compared to 2009. But even a few isolated cases can cross borders and spark an outbreak. Mr Gates emphasised that achieving polio eradication would energize the global health field by showing the real impact of health investments \u2013 particularly investments in vaccines.
\nLast year, Mr Gates called for the next 10 years to be the Decade of Vaccines, a vision of a world 10 years from now where the global health community has come together to deliver life-saving vaccines to every child who needs them, and to invest in vaccines that don\u2019t yet exist. \u201cNot everyone can go into the field, or even donate. But every one of us can be an advocate for people whose voices are often not heard,\u201d Mr Gates wrote. \u201cI encourage everyone to get involved in working for solutions to the challenges those people face. It will draw you in for life,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on Monday repeated calls for polio eradication and expanded childhood immunization. In his third annual letter, a personal account of his priorities, released on Monday, he also called on governments to invest in foreign aid, even in the face of a tough economic climate. \u201cIf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n