NEW YORK, NY, Feb. 2, 2002
– 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."