United States software tycoon Bill Gates, Britain and Nigeria unveiled an ambitious $56-billion plan at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday to prevent 14-million tuberculosis deaths over the next decade.
Speaking at the launch, Gates committed to tripling his own foundation’s funding against tuberculosis from $300-million to $900-million by 2015.
”This is a very tough disease,” Gates told a press conference, underscoring the importance and global ambition of the new programme. ”I’m very excited to see it being created and I want to do everything I can to back it.”
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and Gates urged business and political leaders gathered in Davos to back the new programme.
Brown said it is now time to deliver after global leaders pledged last year to help Africa fight chronic underdevelopment and disease.
Obasanjo picked up on the theme, saying: ”With little words of promises and pledges, Bill has shown the way, that this is the year of delivery.” But, he added with a smile: ”In my part of the world we always like things that are round. Why do you have to go short of $1-billion? It’s easy to pronounce.”
Capacity
Looking ahead, Brown said: ”I believe that the issue is going to move from the support of individual programmes such as we are doing today to building the capacity of health-care systems in the countries that we are talking about.”
Presenting the programme, a World Economic Forum spokesperson said tuberculosis has afflicted humankind ”since at least the days of the pharaohs” and is thought to have killed one billion people throughout history.
The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis aims to increase access to control programmes and spur research on new ways to fight the disease, which was declared an emergency by 46 African countries last year.
Brown said he has asked for the fight against tuberculosis — a disease that kills 5 000 people daily — to be put on the agenda of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries at its next meeting in July.
”I welcome the Gates Foundation’s announcement,” he said in a statement. ”For far too long, world leaders have ignored the global tuberculosis epidemic, even as it causes millions of needless deaths each year.”
Cost
Fully implementing the 10-year plan is estimated to cost $56-billion, of which $47-billion will be for control of the disease and $9-billion for research and development.
Obasanjo said: ”We hope the African Union will endorse this plan, and call upon African governments to commit their share of resources needed to implement it.”
According to Gates, the plan ”makes a compelling case for greater investment in tuberculosis”. The founder of US software giant Microsoft pressed others to match his tripling of funds for the new programme.
”If we have the chance to save 14-million lives, and a clear plan to make it happen, we have an obligation to act,” he said. — Sapa-AFP