Bill Gates discusses ‘good news, bad news’ in ID, global health

BOSTON — During the keynote session here at ASM Microbe 2016, Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, discussed the recent progress of various global health initiatives and described several remaining challenges in need of infectious disease expertise.

“One of the key things our foundation is prioritizing is reducing childhood death, and here there is definitely good news and bad news,” Gates said. “The good news is that there has been a huge reduction over the last 25 years — we’ve gone from about 9.1% of children under 5 dying [from all causes] to now 4.3%.

Bill Gates

“That is really phenomenal. That’s a faster decline than ever before in the history of the world, but it’s still almost 6 million children a year, so we have a lot of work to do to take the latest in science and the resources of the world to cut that number even more dramatically.”

After describing advances in pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccine coverage, pediatric health surveillance systems and polio eradication, Gates fielded several questions focusing on recent ID issues in both developing and modernized countries. Among these were the use of new genetic modification technologies to prevent emerging mosquito-borne infections; the establishment of public health infrastructure before an outbreak or other emergency; and the impact of economic incentives on new antibiotic development. Although this last issue is becoming increasingly relevant with the rise of antimicrobial resistance, Gates said its impact on poorer regions is in need of increased international attention.

“The place where you don’t get [new treatments] is the so-called neglected diseases and malaria, where because prophylactic drugs can solve the problem, the rich countries don’t really care about it,” Gates said. “That’s where philanthropy or government aid absolutely are the only way to get the R&D spending.”

When asked about the most glaring deficiencies in global health, Gates pointed to issues of malnutrition, health care inequity and the impact of HIV, tuberculosis and other epidemics. Solving many of these issues is within reach, he said, but require the continued hard work of international partners and dedicated research of ID specialists.

“There’s such a need to solve these mysteries,” Gates said. “[There is] the need to diagnose things — to see microbial resistance at the point-of-care or even understand if a patient has a bacterial or a viral disease — the opportunity to understand the microbiome [and] the opportunity to have really deep diagnosis. The kind of skills represented here, and the innovation in these areas, will be absolutely critical to achieving our goals.” – by Dave Muoio

Disclosure: Gates is the co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Photo credit: DFID - UK Department for International Development