Statement of Patty Stonesifer Co-chair and President Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is pleased that President George W. Bush today announced his commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. 
 
We see the President’s announcement of $5 billion in new funding beginning in the FY 2004 budget as an important first step in addressing development, especially critical issues related to health. Today’s announcement along with other current, bipartisan, congressional efforts to increase funding are encouraging steps.
 
Experts predict that by 2015, ten million children a year, on current trends, will die before their fifth birthday.  Most of these deaths are preventable if vaccines and other simple and cost-effective health interventions are made available.
 
AIDS has killed more than 20 million people, and more than 40 million people are currently infected.  Concerted, bipartisan U.S. leadership in providing funding – now and in the future – to stop the spread of this pandemic and other infectious diseases is essential.  We applaud the Administration’s current contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and we hope that additional funding will be made available in the FY 2003 budget.