The foundation will provide up to $100 million to improve detection, isolation, and treatment efforts; protect at-risk populations in Africa and South Asia; and accelerate the development of vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that it will immediately commit up to $100 million for the global response to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The funding will help strengthen detection, isolation and treatment efforts; protect at-risk populations; and develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostics. The new funding is inclusive of $10 million the foundation committed to the outbreak in late January.
“Multilateral organizations, national governments, the private sector and philanthropies must work together to slow the pace of the outbreak, help countries protect their most vulnerable citizens and accelerate the development of the tools to bring this epidemic under control,” said Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman. “Our hope is that these resources will help catalyze a rapid and effective international response. This response should be guided by science, not fear, and it should build on the steps that the World Health Organization has taken to date.”
The Gates Foundation is contributing more resources – in close coordination with other donors – to assist the World Health Organization (WHO), Chinese frontline responders and others at the global and national levels. WHO declared the 2019-nCoV outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, citing the risks the virus poses globally and the need for a worldwide coordinated effort to enhance preparedness, especially in fragile settings. The Government of China has also declared a national public health emergency and mobilized a nationwide effort to contain the virus and treat those who are infected.
Accelerating 2019-nCoV Detection, Isolation and Treatment
The foundation will immediately commit up to $20 million to accelerate the detection, isolation and treatment of people diagnosed with the virus with the goal of interrupting transmission and containing the disease. This funding will be directed to multilateral organizations such as WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Support will also be directed to national public health authorities in China and other countries that have reported confirmed cases. Current national-level partners include the National Health Commission of China and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The release of fast and flexible funding is intended to help multilateral organizations and national public health authorities rapidly scale up their virus detection capabilities and implement disease modeling analytics so that they can target resources where they can have the greatest impact in arresting disease spread. This funding is intended to help public health authorities cover the initial cost of labor and supplies while international agencies and national governments appropriate the resources necessary to fund ongoing operations.
Enhancing Protections for At-Risk Populations in Africa and South Asia
Recent epidemics, such as the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009, have had a disproportionate impact on populations living in extreme poverty, and sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia together account for 85 percent of the estimated 629 million people worldwide who live on less than $1.90 per day. Many people living in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia also have limited access to quality primary health care, which is another factor that increases their health risks.
The foundation will provide up to $20 million to help public health authorities in these regions strengthen their emergency operations centers, implement effective disease surveillance efforts and improve their capacity to safely isolate and treat confirmed cases.
Among African Union member states, these efforts will be supported by the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) in collaboration with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and WHO-AFRO. AFENET is a non-profit service alliance of field epidemiology and laboratory training programs that currently operates in more than 30 African countries.
Developing Vaccines, Treatments and Diagnostics for a Sustained Response
The foundation will commit up to $60 million to accelerate the discovery, development and testing of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for 2019-nCoV. If 2019-nCoV transmission continues for several months or more, safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics will be needed to help sustain long-term approaches to disease control and to prevent severe disease and deaths.
The foundation will use its R&D funding to help global partners, such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, identify and prioritize research needs, address gaps in the R&D landscape, incentivize product development by biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and ensure that resulting products are safe, effective and made widely available. This effort will include support already underway for Chinese public- and private-sector research partners focused on the discovery, development, and testing of candidate vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics.
About the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Mark Suzman and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.
“‘We understand our privilege’: Bill and Melinda Gates ‘prepared’ for pandemic by stockpiling food”
Anxious about a potential pandemic, one of the richest couples in the world decided years ago to stockpile food in their basement.
During an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, Melinda Gates, the wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, revealed that the couple worried about how they would obtain water and food if a crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic were to develop.
“A number of years ago, we had talked about, you know, ‘What if there wasn’t clean water? What if there wasn’t enough food? Where might we go? What might we do as a family?'” Gates said. “So I think we should leave those preparations to ourselves. … We had prepared and had some food in the basement in case needed. … Now, we’re all in the same situation.”
"We had prepared for years"@MelindaGates told @EmmaBarnett how her family had prepared for a pandemic and what they think about wearing masks.
— BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) April 16, 2020
Listen live on @BBCSounds 📻 https://t.co/4SnxX44AQs pic.twitter.com/SE9MlxrW44
“What we mostly talk about now in our home every night is how lucky we are. We understand our privilege, and when we say our grace at night, what we’re thankful for around the table is that we aren’t struggling to put a meal on the table as so many families around the world are,” Gates added.
Bill Gates, whose philanthropic foundation is the second-largest donor to the World Health Organization behind the United States, pledged a contribution of another $150 million with his wife to the organization last week to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.
He has long espoused his belief that modern societies are not prepared for a pandemic and recently wrote that there needs to be “at least eight potential vaccines for Covid-19” in an editorial for the Sunday Telegraph.
He has also become a target in some far-right circles. For instance, Roger Stone, a self-described “dirty trickster” affiliated with InfoWars who is now a convicted felon, accused Gates of pushing “mandatory vaccinations and microchipping people.”
Melinda Gates said the coronavirus pandemic presents a situation where “we’re all in this together” and also opened up about the need to wear masks for the foreseeable future.
“We’re seeing it certainly in China and South Korea: People are wearing masks in public,” Gates said. “If that’s the worst thing we have to do, I think that’s something that we just adopt as a community.”
Spencer Neale I Washington Examiner
