Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates, through his social service organization Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has pledged an additional US$ 250 million for research into health problems, under an initiative called Grand Challenges in Global Health.
This initiative, which aims at finding solutions to problems that are unheard of in developed nations but are responsible for many deaths in developing ones, is a joint effort of the foundation with the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.
With this new amount, the grant by Gates for research into 14 public health problems in developing countries has gone up to US$ 450 million. The foundation would now choose research projects to fund from around 1,500 applications from 75 countries. Nearly 450 scientists have been asked to submit grant proposals.
“The overwhelming response demonstrates that when scientists are given a chance to study questions that could save millions of lives, they eagerly rise to the challenge,” Gates said at the annual World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, where he announced the additional grant.
He also urged governments and other philanthropists to hike the monies they invest in global health research. “There is tremendous untapped potential in the scientific community to address the diseases of the developing world. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible,” he said.
Gates said that the foundation decided to increase funding for the Grand Challenges initiative so that more high-quality research proposals could be funded. “There is a tragic inequity between the health of people in the developed world and the health of those in the rest of the world,” he said, while adding that science and technology should be able to make greater global health advancements in the next decade than has been possible in the last 50 years.
“We are on the verge of taking historic steps to reduce disease in the developing world. I believe we can do this, and if we do it will be the best thing humanity has ever done,” he said.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made its largest grant of US$ 1.5 billion to Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization for propagating childhood immunization in developing nations.
Established in January 2000, the Gates Foundation has pledged grants of nearly US$ 8 billion for education and health in such countries.
