As a co-founder of The Giving Plegde, along with his friend and fellow billionaire Warren Buffet, Gates has vowed to donate the vast majority of his wealth to charities. Most notably his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At the World Health Summit in Berlin last weekend, it was revealed that the foundation is allocating $ 1.2 billion to eradicate the polio virus once and for all.
$ 1.2 billion to eradicate the polio virus
In recent times, Gates has already donated large sums of money, which will see his name drop rapidly on the Forbes and Bloomberg Billionaires Index lists. However, he is currently # 5 on this latest list with an estimated net worth of $ 106 billion. According to the Forbes business magazine, the American and his ex-wife have donated a total of more than $ 55 billion to charity, mostly to him.
In late July 2022, the philanthropist promised to donate $ 20 billion that month to his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but it certainly doesn’t stop there. On his own blog, he writes that the goal is to spend $ 9 billion a year on charity by 2026. The 66-year-old billionaire wants to focus on areas of innovation, such as preventing a pandemic, reducing infant mortality, the eradication of diseases and the improvement of food security and climate adaptation.
THANK YOU‼ ️ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation @gatesfoundation @BillGates @MelindaGates Announces $ 1.2 billion commitment to polio eradication. @MSuzman announces at the opening session of @WorldHealthSmt # WHS2022 pic.twitter.com/J2nxm4Ygio
– Dr. Ayoade Alakija (@yodifiji) October 16, 2022
This also includes fighting polio. Polio sounds like a disease of the past, and fortunately it is in most cases due to a successful vaccination program, but the infection still occurs in countries like Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. The latter country also declared the highest level of flood alert, leaving some 6 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Polio is nearly eradicated: the number of cases has decreased by 99.9% since 1988. Some countries have recently benefited from innovations such as improved mapping capabilities to ensure vaccines reach all children. Mobile money is used to ensure vaccinators are paid. An improved polio vaccine gained emergency clearance during the pandemic and is now used in 20 countries. The last places with endemic cases of wild polio are Pakistan and Afghanistan, and with the right level of funding and stability, eradication has a good chance of success in 3 to 4 years, making it only the second post-smallpox disease in be eradicated, Bill Gates said.
I am truly honored to receive this adorable little bear carrying such an urgent message: #End Polio. As countries come together for the moment of the promise of polio, it is imperative that they listen to this bear’s message and commit to delivering polio to history. pic.twitter.com/Ysr8n6LOTB
– Bill Gates (@BillGates) October 17, 2022
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
In rare cases, the disease is also sometimes recorded in people in the Western world, leading various health organizations to warn that polio could break out again in other countries. The disease is extremely difficult to eradicate because fewer than 1 in 100 people who contract it show signs of the disease or know the infection at all, which makes it easy for the virus to be transmitted. Since the
Nearly 500 million doses have been administered in 25 countries since the World Health Organization (WHO) approved the use of a new vaccine nearly 2 years ago, said Hamid Jafari, director of polio eradication for the Mediterranean. Eastern in the United States. an interview with Bloomberg. He is positive about development, but remains hesitant: “We are on track to end all polio by the end of 2023. A lack of funds would be very tragic.”
