Microsoft’s chairman and co-founder Bill Gates is looking for a donation of $1.5 billion dollars to wipe out polio by 2018. Gates wants to wipe out this infectious disease from the entire planet, with your help.
Smallpox was eradicated back 1979 and Bill Gates wants the next disease to be wiped out to be polio. Gates has already contributed $1.8 billion dollars via his foundation and is looking for more money to donate to the $5.5 billion dollar Polio Eradication & Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-2018. Gates hopes to wipe the world clean from polio within the next six years.
Before vaccines became widely available in the 1950s, millions of people were paralyzed by the disease. Sanitation improvements and routine immunization helped eradicate the disease from many countries already, but more work still needs to be done.
“We’ve got to double down and finish the eradication,” Gates stated. Thus far, 60% of the funds raised have come from governments while the rest of the money has been contributed by philanthropists.
Microsoft’s co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates recently mentioned during an interview that he had no personal use for money. In fact, Gates wants to take the wealth that he has and give it back to the world. Gates is focusing on “getting the resources out to the poorest in the world.”
Further reading: Bill Gates, Microsoft
