Bill Gates and his Gates Foundation are putting up more money in favor of global health. The foundation is more than doubling its funding for the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.
The Gates Foundation is putting $250 million into the initiative this time. The total amount of money contributed by the Gates Foundations is now up to $450 million.
The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative was started in 2003 to develop solutions to 14 major scientific challenges that, if solved, could potentially lead to breakthrough advances in global health.
Of the billions of dollars spent worldwide each year to develop new vaccines, drugs, and other health tools, only a fraction is focused on diseases that primarily affect developing countries.
“I’m an optimist,” said Gates in a speech to the World Health Assembly. “We have a historic chance to build a world where all people, no matter where they’re born, can have the preventive care, vaccines, and treatments they need to live a healthy life.”
According to a press release, this summer, the initiative will announce its first round of grants to fund an array of innovative research and development efforts, selected from more than 1,500 proposed projects from 75 countries.
“There is a tragic inequity between the health of people in the developed world and the health of those in the rest of the world,” Gates said. “I am here to talk about how the world, working together, can dramatically reduce this inequity. Never before have we had anything close to the tools we have today to both spread awareness of the problem and discover and deliver solutions.”
Gates said that the foundation decided to double funding for the Grand Challenges initiative in order to fund more of the high-quality research proposals it has received from the international scientific community.
Chris is a staff writer for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
