Gates Foundation CEO wants to eradicate polio, tuberculosis, and malaria by 2045

Fortune

The Gates Foundation announced that it will be making a $200 billion commitment over the next two decades to eliminate or drastically reduce deaths from several disease—then it will close its doors.

Transcript

00:00The foundation wants to eradicate what? Three? Polio, tuberculosis, malaria? Is that right?

00:08Well, we would love to eradicate all of them. And yes, that is the goal. We are excited and

00:14think that it's very achievable with both guinea worm you cited, but polio, which has been a much

00:19bigger scourge for many, many years. And also malaria is one of the others that you mentioned

00:25that we're most optimistic about what can be done. Tuberculosis and HIV, between them,

00:31tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria make up the three largest infectious disease killers that, you

00:37know, disproportionately affect poor countries. And we'd love to see a world where all of those

00:42are eradicated. But we understand for both tuberculosis and HIV, it likely will be a bit more of a

00:47stretch. By the deadline that we're giving ourselves of what can we do under 2045, I think our hope

00:53is more that we can control those diseases and bring mortality and incidence rates down

00:59in, you know, low-income countries to where they are in a country like the United States

01:03today. But we absolutely are hoping that malaria and polio will no longer be with us.

Category

Transcript

Recommended