Updates
 
In 2005, the foundation announced $258.3 million in grants designed to spur innovation in key areas of malaria prevention and treatment.
In 2006, Melinda Gates spoke at the first White House Summit on Malaria, helping draw unprecedented attention to the disease.  Read more

The year 2006 marked a watershed in the battle against malaria with the first-ever White House summit on the deadly illness. The President’s Malaria Initiative includes pledges of more than $1 billion to fight the disease, which takes the lives of over 2,000 African children every day. Melinda Gates addressed the summit of 250 political leaders, scientists, and advocates, calling for agreement on a coordinated global strategy and increased resources to control and combat malaria. The foundation committed $83.5 million in new grants to speed research, improve prevention methods, and expand access to treatment.

 
 
In 2005, five European governments pledged support for an innovative effort to raise money for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) through “immunization” bonds.
In 2006, the International Finance Facility for Immunization issued the first round of bonds, expecting to raise $4 billion for vaccines over the next decade.  Read more

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization reached an important milestone in 2006 when it issued its inaugural bonds through the International Finance Facility for Immunization. GAVI aims to get lifesaving vaccines to children in the developing world. Already the effort has saved an estimated 2.3 million lives. The bonds represent a unique financing strategy that will increase the amount of aid for vaccines by “frontloading” donors’ commitments. Donor countries made legally binding commitments to join the historic effort.

 

Global Health Overview

The foundation’s global health mission is to help ensure that lifesaving advances in health are created and shared with those who need them most. To date, the foundation has committed more than $7.8 billion to support global health efforts in three priority areas:

  • Discovery: Research to understand the scientific basis of major diseases in the poorest countries
  • Development: Partnerships to translate scientific breakthroughs into new vaccines, drugs, and other tools for the developing world
  • Delivery: Local, national, and international efforts to ensure that effective health tools reach the people who need them most

In our global health grantmaking, we prioritize the diseases and health conditions that cause the greatest global health burden and death and that receive the least attention and resources, including AIDS, malaria, TB, child and newborn health, and reproductive health.

We can’t solve these problems alone. While our resources are significant, they are not nearly enough to meet the tremendous needs in global health. We work as a partner with diverse groups—including governments, the private sector, scientific institutions, and nonprofit organizations—to bring the necessary talent, resources, and political will to bear on the toughest health problems.

We strive for big results. We try new ideas in the laboratory and in the field—sometimes taking risks that business and government can’t. We evaluate the programs we support and share the results of those efforts with others so success in one area can be replicated elsewhere.

Examples of our work in 2006 include the following:

  • HIV/AIDS continued to be a major focus. In August, Bill and Melinda Gates gave a keynote address at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, where they outlined priorities for more effectively controlling the spread of the global epidemic. Many of our grantees are focused on intensifying HIV prevention efforts, including expanding access to current prevention tools such as education and condoms and developing new prevention tools such as an HIV vaccine.

  • We continued working with grantees to expand access to tools for fighting other serious diseases and to develop new vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics for improving health in the poorest countries. For example, tuberculosis is now a leading cause of death among people with AIDS, and it hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Diseases, such as Japanese encephalitis, schistosomiasis, and lymphatic filariasis, that affect millions of the poorest people in the world get even less attention, and we are working with many grantees who are helping to remedy that problem.