Bill Gates calls it historic first that poor nations will get same child vaccines as rich nations. Bill Gates’s foundation pledges more than $1 billion toward effort.
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates speaks at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation conference in London June 13, 2011. The Gates Foundation is pledging more than $1 billion as part of a $4 billion push to get vaccines to the children of poor nations.
At a one-day pledging conference in London on Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the U.K. would provide 814 million pounds ($1.3 billion) of new funding up to 2015.
Australia announced on Sunday it would commit $211 million to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation declared it would donate more than $1 billion to the cause.
GAVI is an alliance of organizations including the Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, major vaccine makers and others. The group buys injections for the world’s poorest countries. They estimate about 2 million children die every year from diseases that could have been prevented with a shot.
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LONDON, United Kingdom, 13 June 2011 – UNICEF, a founding partner of the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI Alliance), today welcomed the commitment of $4.3 billion by donors at a fundraising conference in London to step up vaccination efforts over the next four years.