Bill Gates announced Sunday his foundation will give away $500 million this year to combat diseases like malaria on top of the $50 million it already committed to fighting Ebola.
“The Ebola epidemic has shown, once again, that in today’s interconnected world, health challenges anywhere create health challenges everywhere,” Gates said. “The best way to overcome those challenges is to dedicate ourselves to the great cause of reducing the global burden of infectious disease.”
Over $150 million of the donation will go toward the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, a worldwide vaccine development program founded in 1999 with a grant from the Gates Foundation. Some $60 million will go toward the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, which searches for medicines to help combat sicknesses like pediatric HIV, Chagas disease and filarial diseases. Another $49 million will help researchers develop vaccines for bacterial causes of diarrhea. And $29 million will go to the Clinton Health Access Initiative, which fights malaria in southern Africa and southeastern Asia.
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The $500 million is in addition to $50 million Gates pledged to fight Ebola in September. Gates is one of several tech billionaires who shelled out millions to combat the disease, which has already killed 4,941 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Gates’ childhood friend and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen donated $100 million, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave $25 million.
“Ebola is on everyone’s mind,” Gates wrote in a blog post after Sunday’s meeting. “I addressed the Ebola crisis but devoted the bulk of my time to another killer disease: malaria.”
His foundation recently boosted its malaria budget by 30 percent a year to over $200 million, and Gates predicted the global eradication of malaria within a generation.
“We must remain committed to the eradication of malaria,” Gates said in a statement. “Small steps won’t get the job done. History shows that the only way to stop malaria is to end it forever.”
Malaria is not a new opponent for Gates, who first announced his goal of eradicating the disease in 2007. He said promising advances in diagnostic tools, tracking technology, treatments and vaccines have made that goal look increasingly realistic.
Gates has a history of tackling big diseases. His foundation has given away $30 billion in the last 15 years, mostly to education and health causes. The results have been impressive regarding some diseases. The Gates Foundation is working to eliminate polio in the three countries where the disease still exists.
The most generous philanthropist in world history has a big war chest to keep the fight going. His foundation’s endowment stands at $40 billion. And at 59 years old, Gates still has a personal fortune worth an estimated $81.6 billion, making him the richest man on earth. He has pledged to give 95% of his money away.
“The metric of success is lives saved, kids who aren’t crippled,” Gates told Forbes for a 2011 cover story. “Which is slightly different than units sold, profits achieved. But it’s all very measurable, and you can set ambitious goals."
