This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
What are some of the most important contributions the Gates Foundation has made to public health?
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has identified areas of infectious diseases that it considers the most meaningful to developing region populations. No one can argue that the areas selected are not the priorities of the developing world. The Gates programs focus on solutions to pressing public health problems that would not be otherwise undertaken. The programs employ a powerful approach by combining productive U.S. scientists with investigators in developing regions tackling practical and affordable research questions. U.S. scientists familiar with molecular and highly scientific methods coupled with foreign scientists with clinical and epidemiologic expertise assure highly successful outcomes.
One of the targeted areas of the Gates Foundation is enteric and diarrheal diseases. This program focuses on enteric vaccine development and testing and other interventions to reduce disease and suffering, including oral rehydration and zinc supplements, drug treatment, improved water quality, sanitation and hygiene with nutritional components. The program is expanding our understanding of the malnutrition-enteric infectious disease web. There can be no doubt that these programs will lead to improved global public health in the field of enteric and diarrheal diseases.
Although the Gates’ approach to improved public health should be applauded on humanitarian grounds, they have even greater global health importance. The infectious disease problems important to developing regions of the tropical and semitropical world have direct application to our country and industrialized countries. Foreign immigrants and visitors to our country bring tropical infections to the United States. Tens of thousands of State Department employees and military are required to live in developing regions of the world. We have places in our country with conditions resembling developing regions, including urban slums, custodial institutions for the mentally handicapped and some day care centers for young children. The concerns taken on by the Gates Foundation are the world’s problems, and they are ours in the United States.
Herbert L. DuPont, MD, is the director at the Center for Infectious Diseases of the University of Texas/Houston School of Public Health, in Houston.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has had a profound impact on accelerating progress in addressing global infectious disease challenges. It has done this by providing leadership, resources and advocacy to support innovative research on HIV, TB, malaria and vaccine-preventable diseases. More recently, the Foundation has invested in research on the other leading infectious causes of infant and child mortality (including acute lower respiratory tract infection and diarrheal diseases), polio eradication, HIV/TB coinfection, innovative approaches to addressing the water and sanitation crisis and neglected tropical diseases.
The focus has been on developing effective, affordable, sustainable and scalable solutions to problems affecting the most vulnerable populations, emphasizing application of scientific and technological advances while stressing equity, social justice and evidence-based policy-making. Its approach involves field work. It also involves the engagement of local, national and international (bilateral and multilateral agencies) NGOs. They work with other foundations, universities and other private sector partners, including industry, to leverage investments. The Foundation advocates building political will to address these problems.
The Gates Foundation emphasizes transparency, accountability and rigorous monitoring and evaluation of ongoing projects. Its leadership has had a profound impact on increasing investments made by other donors and research sponsors.
By emphasizing the importance of malaria as a cause of child mortality and adverse pregnancy outcome, it has helped increase the commitment and momentum toward control and, ultimately, eradication of this disease. It has also helped to sustain the commitment to eradication of polio.
The Foundation has contributed to national and global public health capacity-building by supporting the International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI) project. This initiative emphasizes innovative approaches to creating or strengthening national public health institutes around the world, with a particular emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
It has also contributed to evidence-based health policy by strengthening national academies of science in Africa through the African Science Academies Development Initiative (ASADI).
I have been involved with two projects supported by the Foundation: One is the IANPHI project, and the other is a study of knowledge, attitudes and practices of routine and polio immunization providers in India. Both projects have provided the opportunity to work with in-country partners to assess the current situation and develop innovative approaches to addressing the gaps and challenges identified.
James Hughes, MD, is a professor of medicine and public health at Emory University in Atlanta.
Please visit the International Association of National Public Health Institutes' and the African Science Academies Development Initiative's Web sites for more information.