The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Tuesday pledged a 750 million US dollar (3,9 milliarder DKR) grant over 10 years to support the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), a Geneva-based partnership funding childhood vaccination in poor countries, the World Bank press review reports.
The new money comes atop a prior 750 million dollar grant in 1999 and two smaller grants, bringing the total Gates commitment to GAVI to a little more than 1,5 billion. But the foundation will stretch the term of the new grant to 10 years from five, reducing its annual payout to 75 million dollar from 150 million as it urges more donors to get on board.
– It is an extremely large grant. But it is time to recognize the need for others to step up as we go from majority funder to minority funder, said Richard Klausner, executive director of global health for the Gates Foundation, adding: – Our role is to be a risk taker and a catalyst when an organization is new.
Bill Gates said, that as an investment vaccinating children against preventable diseases such as diphtheria, measles and hepatitis B provides an unmatched return. – We are basically saving lives for less than 1.000 dollar (5.600 DKR) per life, he said.
In an editorial, The Washington Post writes that the Gates grants are cleverly structured.
The first one served to launch the Vaccine Fund, the financing wing of the GAVI, which promotes access to vaccines in poor countries. This transformed the incentives of the pharmaceutical industry. Before, the industry had little reason to manufacture vaccines for which there might be no market; after, a multimillion-dollar pot of cash hung like a carrot in front of drug companies.
Moreover, the Gates contribution spurred other donors to contribute, too. Over the past five years, the Vaccine Fund has raised 580 million dollar from other sources, notably 219 million from the United States and 150 million from Norway.
Thanks to the Vaccine Fund, an extra 42 million people have already received the hepatitis B vaccine, and vaccines for yellow fever, influenza and other killers have also had their reach extended.
As a result, an estimated 670,000 deaths have been prevented. But there remains vast scope for progress. Some 27 million children still are not immunized each year; the price of this failure was 2,1 million deaths in 2002 alone, according to the World Health Organization.
Moreover, new vaccines are in the development pipeline – for meningococcal disease, pneumococcal disease and rotavirus diarrhea – and these could save an additional 1 million lives per year or more if donors supply the money to purchase them.
The Gateses smart philanthropy is a wonderful thing. But it would be even better if other donors, public and private, reacted yet more generously to this second grant than they did to the first. The opportunity to prevent needless death awaits them, the Washington Pst concludes.
One way the Gates foundation assesses the ‘bang’ it gets for its bucks is how much money the recipient organizations can then attract from other donors. The first Gates grant for immunization, for instance, resulted in roughly an equal amount pledged from other donors, mostly governments. So the immunization alliance received a total commitment of about 1,4 billion dollar in its first five years.
Mrs. Gates said the foundations latest grant should help reassure potential donors. – People need to know this is a long-term commitment. They need to know it is something that will be sustained in a big way, she said.
Drug companies, for instance, want to know that the distribution systems being put in place in impoverished countries are supported so that their investments in manufacturing vaccines will pay off.
In addition to the contribution from the Gates Foundation, GAVI also received a grant of 290-million US dollar from Norway Monday.
Jens Stoltenberg, former prime minister of Norway and a member of the GAVI board of directors, said his country has made a commitment to rebuild the health infrastructure and deliver childhood vaccines in areas ravaged by last months tsunamis.
– Immunizing children is one of the most important and cost-effective development investments governments can make, Stoltenberg said.
THE MICROSOFT TOUCH
– Bill Gates is widely considered the greatest philanthropist in history, surpassing US corporate legends such as John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
– The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000, has a 27 billion US dollar endowment budget.
– It has made grants of 7,48 billion.
– The foundations charter is to promote greater equity (lighed) in four areas: global health, education, public libraries and support for at-risk families.
– It is engaged in projects as diverse as funding immunisation programs in Africa to providing free internet access in US high schools.
– Its biggest single donation is the establishment of the 1 billion dollar Gates Millennium Scholars Fund, which sponsors students from minority groups through university.
– The Seattle-based foundation is run by Gatess father, William Gates Snr, and former Microsoft executive Patty Stonesifer. It has 198 employees.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
