Bill Gates aims to immunise the world against Polio Microsoft founder and the world’s leading philanthropist, Bill Gates donated $1.8 billion to fight polio on Friday.The donation comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was announced at the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi. The money was given as part of a six-year plan to eliminate all types of polio.The philanthropic couple have paved the way for billionaire patronage since 2000, following their announcement when they stated that almost all of their $67 billion fortune will be donated to charitable causes. This most recent pledge of $37 billion has propelled them to the top of the world’s givers.
Polio is prevalent in just three remaining countries in the world, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan; in 1988 it was recorded in 128 countries.
Mr Gates, 57, said of the initiative that humanity was on the verge of doing “something we’ve never been able to do before”.
A worldwide scheme to end polio has been a long time in the making, first announced in 1988 when the target was set. Since then, approximately 350,000 children in 125 countries have been paralysed by the disease every year.
The disease is vaccine preventable and only 19 cases have been reported this year.
Mr Gates said: “This isn’t just a polio eradication plan; it’s a global immunisation plan with the goal of ending polio while improving efforts to protect all children, including the most vulnerable, with life-saving vaccines.”