Bill Gates, Bono Call on Leaders at World Economic Forum to Increase Global Health Spending

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NEW YORK -- Addressing leaders at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in his capacity as co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, joined by pop star Bono of U2, today called on government, industry and not-for-profit organizations to substantially increase and sustain development funding for global health. Bill Gates and Bono are joined by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill at a WEF plenary session at 10:00 a.m. today.
 
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also announced at the WEF that it has awarded new grants totaling $50 million to advance efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV.
 
"Health spending should be dramatically increased because we know it works," said Gates.  "Though the problems are complex, solutions do exist. We can bridge the gap in global health inequity – and by doing so foster social and economic stability – but what we need now is the commitment to action."
 
"Paul O'Neill is right to put aid effectiveness first," said Bono. "The great news is that investing in health and education in well-run, but poor, countries is highly effective. That's why it is an international scandal and moral outrage that clear plans to put kids in school, train nurses and provide essential medicines are not being funded. Bill Gates' contribution, financially and personally, is extraordinary but it is going to take action by governments before we can really get to grips with these problems."
 
Gates built his case for increased health expenditures by pointing to sobering global health statistics but also specific examples of how low-cost, high-impact health interventions can dramatically improve health:
  • Tetanus was the cause of an estimated 215,000 neonatal deaths and 30,000 maternal deaths in 1998.  Yet, for $1.20 per woman, tetanus inoculations can eliminate this disease as a complication of childbirth.
  • Each year, of the 130 million children born worldwide, more than 30 million – roughly one in four – do not receive any vaccinations.  Yet, an entire vaccination package costs just $1.
  • Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds and is the leading cause of child death in Africa.  Yet, traditional malaria treatment – chloroquine and sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine – cost just pennies per dose.  Even new treatments for drug resistant strains, including Coartem, cost just 10 cents a tablet, or $2.40 per full adult treatment, and have cure rates of over 95 percent.
  • More than 60 million people have been infected with HIV. HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, it is the fourth-biggest killer.  At the end of 2001, an estimated 40 million people globally were living with HIV.  Yet, condoms are inexpensive (ranging from 3 to 40 cents per condom) and effective social market campaigns have been proven to generate 5- to 6-fold increases in condom sales and use in developing countries.
 
"We find ourselves at a unique moment in history," added Gates. "Expert consensus is developing that increasing health spending is essential not only to improving the health of the world's poorest people but also to promoting economic and social progress."
 
Gates specifically pointed to the need for more resources and expertise being directed at global health, including public and private scientific research on disease of the poor, domestic health spending within developing countries and development assistance from rich donor nations.  Sounding a message of urgency, Gates emphasized that now is the time to push for increased health spending.
 
According to the recent Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, increased investment in health would not only save millions of lives, it would translate into hundreds of billions of dollars of increased income in low-income countries. 
 
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also announced three important new grants that could each save million of lives with a comparatively small investment.
 
Foundation funds HIV/AIDS prevention for women
The foundation has awarded a $20 million grant to the Population Council for a phase three trial of a promising microbicide – Carraguard™ – that has the potential to offer women a breakthrough in protection against HIV/AIDS.  Women are the fastest growing segment of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
 
A microbicide is a product designed to substantially reduce transmission of HIV and possibly other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) when used in the vagina. 
 
"Women may not have the power to say 'no' to sex or to insist that their partners use condoms," said Linda Martin, president of the Population Council. "They urgently need an HIV/AIDS prevention product that they can control."
   
"What makes this particular compound so promising," continued Martin, "is that laboratory tests have shown it has tremendous potential to prevent HIV, and our clinical studies indicate that it causes minimal irritation and side effects.  Additionally, unlike the current AIDS prevention techniques, it may allow women to both protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and have children if they want to."
 
In a complementary initiative, the foundation has also awarded PATH, a Seattle-based global health organization, $5 million to further PATH's own research into the development and delivery of barrier and microbicide products for women.
 
"This award will help us to identify and evaluate currently-used vaginal products and preferences to enhance our understanding of the formulation and application options that are most likely to be adopted, especially in the developing world," said Dr. Christopher Elias, President of PATH. "This will be critical to moving the various final microbicide products more rapidly along the product development pipeline."
 
HIV/AIDS prevention focused on high-risk populations could save millions in low-prevalence countries
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also awarded the International HIV/AIDS Alliance a grant of $25 million towards a five-year HIV/AIDS prevention program. The funding will support the Alliance's Frontiers Prevention Project to provide intensive community level HIV programs in countries at risk of a growing HIV epidemic, as well as to develop training materials and policy advice to promote HIV prevention in other countries.
 
Programs will start in Cambodia, Ecuador, India and Madagascar where immediate prevention efforts could have a considerable impact on the spread of the virus. Particular emphasis will be placed on working in partnership with groups of people at high-risk of contracting and spreading the disease, including people already living with HIV, sex workers, men who have sex with men and injection drug users.
 
"With the support of the foundation's funding," said Jeffrey O'Malley, Executive Director, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, "the Frontiers Prevention Project is now in a position to test and demonstrate the impact of comprehensive community action on HIV/AIDS, and promote attention to HIV/AIDS in countries where increased action now could avert serious problems later."
 
"Innovative initiatives like these that channel resources to those most at risk of contracting and spreading HIV have proven their effectiveness," said Gates. "By lowering HIV infection rates through effective prevention programs, millions of lives have been saved in countries like Thailand, Senegal and Uganda."