SO far, it was 2025 years old for global health. The Trump administration reduces funding for a number of international programs; Close the American Agency for International Development, the arm of the main aid development of the government; And the withdrawal of American membership from the World Health Organization.
But a glimmer of hope arrived on May 8, when Bill Gates, President of the Gates Foundation, Declare It will immerse the struggling field with most of its wealth – 200 billion dollars, which was built after the creation of Microsoft – to be spent by 2045. It also plans to close the foundation at that time.
Since Gates and his ex -wife, French Melinda gatesThe establishment of the Foundation 25 years ago, the organization contributed more than $ 100 billion for global reasons, primarily in health. Gates helped to create two important health organizations: SophisticatedWhich provides children in the world, life rescue vaccines, and the global fund, which focuses on distributing treatments for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
The schedule, which was just announced, represents an acceleration in the institution’s timetable. When created, the Board of Directors approved the organization’s sunset about 20 years after the death of the gates.
Gates, who is 70 years old, spoke this year, over time about the reason for his decision to accelerate his plans.
When did you start thinking about closing the basis earlier than what you had previously planned?
During the past two years, I was talking to [Gates Foundation CEO] Mark Suzmann and the Foundation Council on this topic. We decided to double to obtain some infectious diseases, either dramatically or eliminating them, which is exciting.
Ironically, the announcement ended at a time when global health financing is in an incredible crisis due to many discounts and others being discussed. This was not a response. But perhaps the obligation to give all this people about the importance and effectiveness of these dollars, and the basic value to reduce childhood deaths. So it was late last year to really put it in the painting and talked about the doubling.
He was also late last year, In DecemberYou have a three -hour dinner with the President now Trump, and I said you are “admired” with his questions about polio and HIV. This discussion was not part of your consideration to accelerate your schedule?
In the two discussions with President Trump since his election – on December 27. And February 5 – He was very supportive of our work in HIV and polio. It is the Congress that will put the budget to go ahead [to provide HIV treatments] Gavi has been supported by the two parties, and less than 1 % of the US budget went to these things. Some of this financing has been cut at the moment, in fact, in a very surprising way. We need to get Congress for weight.
Read more: 100 people are more influential in health
I hope we can restore a lot of this financing, but we have challenges in many rich countries where the budgets are very narrow, and they are under pressure to increase the defense budgets. Over the next four years, we will likely see a child death increase for the first time since the end of the century, and I am very devoted to changing things to help us return to progress. We need rich world governments to restore some of this financing; We need more participation by charitable works to help. Amazing innovations mean any money we can use more effectively. more [the next] The 20 -year period, I am completely optimistic, although we are in a horrific emergency today.
Given the United States withdrawal from the World Health Organization, can the Gates Foundation play a greater role in working with those who fill some of the financing gap?
Who is the main partner for us. In reality [WHO director general] Tedros [Ghebreyesus] He was with me in Singapore on Tuesday, and we were talking about his reorganization and the decisions he made. Which plays a big polio and most things we play in global health. The strange, and now that we have cut a lot, the Gates Foundation is now The largest donor for whom. I don’t think in the long run that this is what should be. A large part of this is the work we do in polio, but we fund dozens of things in who.
But in the end I believe that the United States will remember what you want to see has been changed and resumed as a member, because in many areas, it is important, including whenever we have a possible pandemic. As you know, we have funded a lot of preparation for the epidemic from WhO on the lessons that came out of the Covid vaccine voltage. I do not think that the United States will return immediately, but we will be a person to help the dialogue in a dialogue that ultimately restores the United States there, which is believed to be valuable to the world and the United States
How much do you care about the current situation in global health, as the United States has made such major cuts in its contributions?
You have been guess because the United States has problems with deficit, we may see a 15 % -20 % reduction. I have said, well, we need to make sure to reduce the effect that happened. I think it’s perfect at this stage we return to that.
There are some proposals to Congress from the executive branch, which represents a reduction of approximately 80 %. It will be tragic. We will see deaths from children rising, and they have decreased by a record rate since 2000, from 10 million to less than 5 million. We will see it wrong, and this means millions of additional deaths. Some of the cuts were very surprising.
Read more: You find that medicaid expansion has saved tens of thousands of lives
We will get a real scale of this global health emergency in June in Brussels, to renew Gavi for a period of five years: this entity that we started in 2000 with the rich governments of the world to buy vaccines for the poorest children in the world. The scale will be – can we raise as much as we grew up five years ago, or will we be largely less? I must tell you, now, look very dark. Including obtaining the United States to buy these vaccines very inexpensive. These are one -dollar vaccines, and the majority of the reason is that we were subjected to death discounts from about 10 million to five million due to vaccines. So that you are not able to buy one -dollar vaccines when we talk [about something] This is less than 1 % of the US budget, I think this is tragic. We will try to raise the issue, and we are trying to keep the United States in HIV medications, as it was very generous, starting with President Bush. The renewal of the global fund will come in the fall, and now everything may be a disaster.
More studies show that the effect on health requires treatment of non -medical factors as well, and Gates has supported programs in education and nutrition. How important is this over the next twenty years?
If you look at the collapse of basic spending, which is slightly more than $ 100 billion over the past 25 years, the largest is in the global health field, as 35 % created new low -cost tools and 35 %, which helps to deliver these tools.
The next is education, which is about 15 %. This was always something because I got such a wonderful education here in the United States, I felt that we should try to allow this student. We have done a lot with rented schools, curricula and scholarships. Now, we use artificial intelligence to improve the curriculum. We are able to raise graduation levels.
Agriculture is 8 % of what we did. The opportunity to make the seeds more productive, and crops are more nutritious by improving seeds or doing food immunization by adding some microscopic nutrients at a later time – this work is very important. In Africa, with population growth and climate change, the only way to help the poorest there – most of them farmers – are to improve their seeds and reach fertilizers.
One of the most amazing software we did is to take chicken in Africa and use the cross with highly productive chicken from Europe and the United States to get more eggs. Now we have more than 200 million chickens delivered to women in Africa, which help and feed, and their economic help. It is a very exciting area. Agricultural work has a great impact like our health work.
To what extent did the institution dealt with the goals and vision that you set when you created them 25 years ago?
Health progress goes beyond what I expected. Tens of millions of lives were rescued because of our work and through our partnerships – more than 100 million lives. It is not only we. There was a movement, and we were a major part of it.
In areas such as education, we have done great things – graduation rates have risen but almost not a miracle. I expected a little to have a greater impact on education and I had no idea that we would be able to get incredible results in our health work. So we learn all the time. We have a pipeline of innovation much stronger than ever. We have artificial intelligence that will outperform it – each piece of discovery and a delivery piece. So I have very high expectations over the next twenty years, despite the financing emergency that we are in.
