International
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
India celebrates one year polio-free
Friday the 13th is a day known for superstition, fear, and bad luck. But today, the global health community in India attained a milestone that will ensure that we remember this Friday the 13th as a day of progress and hope. As of today, India has gone an entire year without a case of polio. In technical-speak, this means that India has officially interrupted transmission of the virus and is no longer considered an endemic country, leaving only three countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria) remaining in the world with endemic status.
Experts have long considered India to be one of the toughest places in the world to fight and eradicate polio. After all, India is neither a small nor homogenous place, and just two years ago, India had 741 cases of polio—the most in the world. How did they achieve this milestone?
- They immunized, and they immunized again: India held two National Immunization Days (NIDs) in 2011, and during each NID, an amazing 2.5 million vaccinators delivered polio vaccines to more than 172 million children. For children who weren’t reached by the NIDs, India organized 7 Sub-National Immunization Days to focus in on more remote and high-risk areas.
- They innovated: Indians didn’t just rely on traditional vaccine education and delivery methods. They met parents and children where they were—at bus stops, in construction sites, on motorbikes. They also fostered pressure and incentives for their health care workers, ensuring accountability and consistency in their delivery program.
- They fought stigma and misconception: Particularly in Muslim sections of India where concerns about vaccines were more common, polio eradication programs engaged religious leaders at all levels to build trust among parents for this safe, effective health intervention.
- They led from within: Though the role of groups including the GPEI partners and the Gates Foundation can’t be overstated, India is a success story because Indians have also stepped up. Since the National Polio Surveillance Project was established in 1997 by the Indian Government and the WHO, the program has grown, become more effective and targeted, and has built a platform that now allows for greater progress on other diseases. Local stakeholders including teachers, religious leaders, and health workers have been on the front lines of the fight. And critically, the Indian government has financed the vast majority of the eradication effort with its own resources—an example for other emerging economies to follow.
And why, as an Africa-focused organization, should we pay so much attention to this achievement? For many in the global health community who often feel like the challenges are endless, this shows that real progress is possible—and not just in the “easy” places. This milestone should rejuvenate global efforts to eradicate polio, including from the last remaining endemic country in Africa (Nigeria) as well as other countries which had once eliminated the disease but have seen a resurgence in recent years (including Angola, Chad, and the DRC). At a time when vaccination rates are on the decline in some regions, each successful immunization campaign—and the press generated around it—also helps to reinforce the safety and value of vaccines for parents around the world. The tactics India used to achieve this goal should also serve as a lesson for other countries and other global health challenges; persistence, innovation, and country ownership are fundamental to effective development programs, and will remain so long after polio is eradicated.
Please join me in congratulating the millions of people who have dedicated time, resources, and political will toward making this a momentous—and happy—Friday the 13th!
Fighting pneumonia in Bangladesh
To mark World Pneumonia Day today we are presenting the first of three special reports from Dhaka, where UK Parliamentarian Jim Dobbin MP highlights his experiences visiting Dhaka’s main healthcare centres.
I am currently in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a senior delegation of UK parliamentarians looking at the work of the GAVI Alliance and the impact that vaccines are having in the developing world. The GAVI Alliance is one of the UK Government’s headline organistions and I have followed its progress for many years. I am especially interested in its work in rolling out life-saving vaccines in developing countries where 85% of the world’s unvaccinated children live. The results have been staggering to date: since its creation in 2000 it has immunised 288 million children and saved 5 million lives and is aiming to save more than 4 million more by 2015. Therefore when I was given the opportunity to see this work in action in a Dhaka children’s hospital and urban slum I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
Going into the visit I thought of a similar visit I undertook in Kenya, where I saw crowded wards of whole families huddled together in unsanitary conditions. Medical waste sat in heaps on the floor and sick children ran around the hospital. That was a very moving visit and highlighted to me just how big a gulf there is between the richest nations and poorest.
But, ever since I arrived in Dhaka you can tell that it is a bustling city on the rise. This same sense was evident in the Dhaka Shishu Hospital. I arrived and was met by Professor Samir Saha, the Head of the Microbiology at the hospital. He took us around the wards and the laboratories and explained the work they were undertaking. His team are a pioneering group helping to improve the diagnosis of infections and disease surveillance and to better document the impact of immunisation in Bangladesh. We also met the Government Expanded Programme for Immunisation Team and heard about the great strides they had been making over the past few years. You cannot hide the fact that childhood mortality still greatly affects the country; in fact 55,000 lives every year are claimed by pneumonia. In the hospital wards, we saw the young children fighting this terrible disease, which along with diarrhoea accounts for nearly 40% of all childhood mortality in the developing world. We also saw a the impact of malnutrition and poor healthcare education, which leads to children going undiagnosed and not receiving the vital treatment they need.
But overall it was actually a picture of great hope and improvement. I was delighted to see the progress that Bangladesh has been making in immunisation with the support of the GAVI Alliance. We witnessed a well run and effective immunisation session; heard from maternal health workers about their drive to educate mothers about the healthcare of their children. We visited the central vaccine store for Bangladesh and heard about their checks and balances that ensure that vaccines are stored and distributed correctly.
Bangladesh is just one of many countries benefitting in this way. Thanks to the funding from the UK and other donors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the excellent work of the GAVI Alliance is being replicated across the developing world. Access to life-saving vaccines has been delivered to countries 10-15 years sooner than would have otherwise been possible. Nicaragua became the first GAVI-eligible country to introduce the life-saving pneumococcal vaccine and it is now being used in 15 developing countries and has already reached more than three million children with another 10 million expected to receive the vaccine in 2012. In fact today, Malawi will become the 16th GAVI-supported country to introduce the vaccine.
Therefore the picture is increasingly encouraging in Bangladesh and across the globe, but there are still challenges. With an increasingly close relationship between the major donors and aid providers in the world we can continue to move forward and provide successful vaccinations to those that really need them.
21st Century Development: Innovation with Impact
While leaders meet at the G20 summit in Cannes, Bill Gates was invited to speak about financing for development.
In his report, he makes the case for why we must continue investing in the livelihoods of poor people—and he suggests some innovative ways to do it.
In the report, Bill Gates says:
“Leadership from the G20 is critically important right now. The global economic situation is as fragile as it has been at any time in the past 50 years. As leaders of the G20, you face a difficult challenge: How do you resolve the immediate crisis while continuing to make smart investments in long-term growth and improved living conditions?
In the past 50 years, a billion people were saved from starvation by advances in agriculture. Health has improved in stunning ways, thanks to innovations like vaccines. In 1960, 20 million children under the age of 5 died. In 2010, fewer than 8 million children under 5 died. The world population more than doubled during this time, which means the rate of death has been cut by over 80 percent. Aid generosity has played an important role in these successes
Despite the current economic crisis, I am optimistic that we can build on the generosity and innovations that worked in the past. The group of countries able to contribute resources to development is larger than ever before. The number of people who can spur innovations is much greater than in the past. For these reasons, I am convinced we can create a new era in development.”
Focusing on the solution, not the problem
Bill and Melinda Gates have always approached the fight against hunger, poverty and disease a little differently — instead of focusing on the problem, they focus on the solution and narrow in on what’s working to get things done. This positive spirit is embodied in their foundation’s new and aptly named blog, Impatient Optimists.
The goal is to get readers engaged in a dialogue about solutions to worldwide and domestic problems, reflect the values of inspiration and urgency, and create an entire community of impatient optimists around the world.
The blog — or digital media hub, if you will — offers the tools to get people started on the right track. There videos, infographics and photos to help bring the issues to life. There are success stories and case studies. There are positive stories from the ground. And there will be lots of opportunities for brainstorming and open dialogue.
As Melinda Gates says, “I am convinced that through the telling of these stories, we discover what connects us. We can work together to create new ways of addressing the world’s most pressing problems. Social media is a tool for dialogue, community-sharing, and action.”
Join this community of impatient optimists who believe that the first step in changing the world is through educating oneself and stimulating dialogue. Luckily, in today’s digital world, being in-the-know is only a click away.
Malaria: We are making progress
How is this for some Living Proof – MORE THAN 500 MILLION PEOPLE HAVE BEEN REACHED WITH ANTIMALARIAL BEDNETS IN THE PAST 2 YEARS ALONE.
It’s easy to read, but here is a nice little interactive map by our friends at the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation that visually represents the statistics. It shows how far the international community has come, for example saving 580,547 lives in Nigeria, and how much work we still need to do to completely eradicate this deadly yet preventable disease.
There are 3 main components to this infographic: you can view the progress of individual countries, an explanation of the life saving methods that are used, and a comparison of the number of global lives saved with and without increased interventions such as bed nets, case management and anti-malarial drugs.
You can find the interactive infographic here. Please take a look and pass it on to your friends and family.
A reason to celebrate this Mother’s Day
As Mother’s Day is marked in the UK, Melinda Gates explains why we have an extra reason to celebrate.
Mother’s Day is usually a joyous occasion—and this year we have even more reason to celebrate. Mothers and their children are surviving today at higher rates than at any other point in history. In fact, just since 1990, the number of children who die before their fifth birthday has declined from more than 12 million per year to slightly over 8 million.
I feel fortunate because I get to see this progress firsthand. On a recent trip to Nairobi, I spoke with a group of women about their children. One mother told me, “I want to bring every good thing to one before I have another.” It reinforced what I always hear on my trips to different countries around the globe—that mothers everywhere have the same goal for our children, a successful future.
So, what’s behind this success? Over the past decade, innovators around the world have developed new tools and technologies– vaccines, drugs, and bednets to name a few—which have been integral in saving millions of lives.
But the innovation driving this success is not just limited to these stunning breakthroughs in science, in technology; it can be creative without being high-tech. I’m talking about pioneering ways of changing behavior, working with communities and sharing these new ideas with women in the poorest areas of the world.
Take breastfeeding, for example. Simply put, breastfeeding is a life-saving act. We know exclusive breastfeeding – when the newborn is fed only with breast milk and nothing else in the first six months – is one of the best ways to save baby’s lives.
When I was in Dowa, Malawi last year I visited the Dowa District Hospital. Exclusive breastfeeding is a core project of the government, one supported by Save the Children’s Saving Newborn Lives Program. The initiative encourages women to give birth in a health clinic and then provides them with three home visits from healthcare workers, in the weeks following the birth. These visits help mothers learn about how to care for their children, including exclusively breastfeeding. Programs like these aren’t created in a laboratory, yet help mothers realize they can significantly improve the health of their newborns without any new technologies.
The British government and citizens have been true leaders around these types of health innovations for women and children. I had the pleasure of meeting with Andrew Mitchell recently and was impressed with his remarkable passion. I’ve met with a lot of ministers over the years, but I don’t often see the dedication like that of Minister Mitchell. It’s also truly amazing to see the way Britain has stood by its international commitments on foreign aid in the midst of the current global financial crisis.
Investing in the health of women and children is the right thing to do. If we keep innovating, we’ll make faster and faster progress and achieve more with our investments. We’ll save the lives of mothers and their children in even greater numbers. And we’ll help make sure that motherhood is always a joy, for every mother, everywhere.
I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate Mother’s Day.
This post was first published on the UK Department for International Development (DFID) blog
7 things to know about Bill Gates’ annual letter
Each year, Bill Gates releases an annual letter on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to look back on progress made and lessons learned in his efforts to reduce extreme poverty and improve global health. These letters also seek to educate and inform the public on the effectiveness and importance of smart foreign aid and look ahead to the future.
This year, the focus is on vaccines — particularly the polio vaccine — as well as HIV/AIDS, malaria, agriculture and education. You can download an electronic copy on the Gates Foundation website, but to get you started, here’s a list of important points Gates makes in his letter:
1. Until polio is wiped out completely, the disease is still very much alive. The money that we will save by eradication will far exceed what we are spending on efforts now — it could save the world up to $50 billion over the next 25 years!
2. Vaccines are the most effective and cost-effective health tool invented. If we simply scale up existing vaccines in the five countries with the highest child mortality, we could save 3 million lives (not to mention more than $2.9 billion in treatment costs alone) over the next decade.
3. The fight against malaria is making huge strides. Of the 99 countries with the disease, 43 have decreased cases of the disease by more than 50 percent!
4. Bed nets can have a huge impact on the fight against malaria. Many amazing grassroots groups are helping by delivering bed nets. The Nothing But Nets campaign has recruited hundreds of thousands of individuals, as well as organizations involved in the fight against malaria.
5. Neonatal deaths can be reduced by over 50 percent by increasing the number of births done by a skilled provider in a clinic and educating mothers on sanitary measures and proper child nutrition.
6. Although progress continues, the pace is still slow in fighting the AIDS epidemic. There are two fronts of this war that need to be tackled: treating those already infected and preventing new infections.
7. More attention needs to be given to agricultural development, since most poor people in the world feed their families and earn their living from farming. It has been proven that when farmers increase productivity, nutrition improves and hunger and poverty are reduced.
As Gates rightfully states, “Securing the conditions that will lead to a healthy, prosperous future for everyone is a goal I believe we all share.” We’re excited for the great strides The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will make in 2011!
Major new commitments to eradicating polio
At the World Economic Forum in Davos today, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the United Kingdom will double its current contribution to polio eradication. This will see an extra 45 million children fully vaccinated against the disease.
Making the announcement, alongside Bill Gates and Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization, Mr Cameron said:
“I passionately believe that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rid the world of the evil of polio. We have the vaccines and the tools to do it. All that’s missing is real and sustained political will to see this effort through to the end. That’s why I’m announcing today that the UK is prepared to fully vaccinate an additional 45 million children against polio, through a doubling of our support to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative over the next two years.”
He also called on other donors to follow suit and help consign polio to the history books.
Bill Gates also announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed an additional $102 million to support efforts to stamp out the disease.
Welcoming these commitments Dr Margaret Chan said:
“These new investments come at a critical time in the fight against polio. We have a window of opportunity now, with cases at an all time low. But if there is polio anywhere we are at risk of polio everywhere. Only eradication will ensure that polio does not reemerge as a global threat.”
Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that can damage the nervous system and cause paralysis. It remains endemic in 4 countries – Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan – and there were just under 1,000 cases reported in 2010.
The good news is that vaccines and extensive immunization programmes have had a huge impact with polio cases having been reduced by 99% in the last 20 years. The disease is now close to being only the second in history – after smallpox – to be wiped out.
As Mr Cameron said today:
“We have come so far in eradicating polio. We are so close to delivering a polio-free world for all our children. Let’s finish the job. And let’s eradicate polio once-and-for-all.”
Highlights from tonight’s Living Proof event
Earlier this year, Bill and Melinda Gates transferred their Living Proof campaign, an effort that highlights the positive impact of developmental assistance, to ONE. To celebrate this move — as well as to thank the UK government for its commitment to foreign aid — Bill and Melinda, along with Global Fund Deputy Executive Director Dr. Debrewerk Zewdie, gave a very special presentation tonight on something we don’t hear too often: success stories in the fight against global poverty.
Bill and Melinda touched upon several issues during their presentation, including agriculture, immunization and corruption. No matter the subject, there was one thing in common — they had hard facts to prove that in these areas things are getting better for millions of people in the poorest places in the world. TB deaths, for example, are declining globally, down from 1.8 million deaths in 2007 to 1.3 million in 2008. Nearly 4 million Africans have been placed on treatment for AIDS since 2002. And 98 million less people are going hungry in 2010 compared to in 2009. These things could not have been done without the assistance of foreign aid. “When money is spent wisely…it builds prosperous societies,” said Melinda.
Dr. Zewdie’s talk focused on breaking some of the most common misconceptions of aid. “As an African, I can tell you that the people who receive aid are the first ones to strive for sustainability.”
The bottom line of the event? Investments in development are saving lives, improving livelihoods and building prosperous societies — but in order to understand that, people need to talk about all the progress that we’ve made in the developing world. If Bill and Melinda can do it, you can too.
Check out videos and photos on our new Living Proof page and watch a rerun of our webcast on our Livestream page or in the video above. And of course, let us know what you thought of the event in the comments below!
LIVE WEBCAST: Watch ONE’s Living Proof event with Bill and Melinda Gates
The moment that we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! In just a few hours, Bill and Melinda Gates will be giving a special presentation at our Living Proof event here in London, which we’ll be airing LIVE via webcast on Facebook.
The event is a chance for the Gates to thank the UK on their commitment to foreign aid and highlight the positive impact that aid is making. Watch their presentation live at 18:30 GMT right here on the blog or on our Facebook page. The video will start at 18:25 GMT, so don’t worry if you see a blank or frozen screen till then.
The webcast will also be aired at the following local times: 19:30 BST (London), 20:30 CET (Paris, Berlin), 14:30 EST and 11:00 PST.
Our policy expert Nora Coghlan will be taking questions on our Facebook page live chat, so we recommend that you watch it there. And I will be live-Tweeting notable quotes from our Twitter page. We hope that you enjoy the event tonight!
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Health, India, Partners, Policy News, Polio