Gateses to appeal for ongoing U.S. funding of global health

Bill and Melinda Gates are expected to ask Washington officials on Tuesday to "continue funding global health initiatives despite the recession and to commit to nearly halve the number of child deaths worldwide by 2025," the Washington Post reports. At a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation event in Washington, D.C., Bill Gates will address "members of Congress, the U.S. global AIDS and malaria coordinators, the health policy counselor for the White House Office of Management and Budget and others," according to the Washington Post. His presentation comes after the Gates Foundation last month launched a campaign to highlight the success of U.S. global health spending.

"The presentation, separate meetings with lawmakers and the media campaign are meant to show that U.S. funding is saving lives and that the Gateses think child deaths worldwide can be cut from more than 9 million to 5 million a year in the next 15 years," writes the Washington Post. "Government funding that's coming from the United States is making a huge difference on the ground in the developing world," Melinda Gates said in an interview last week.

As U.S. lawmakers consider "massive spending programs even as they face an enormous deficit," the Gateses point to U.S. initiatives, including PEPFAR and PMI, as well as "the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which gets a third of its budget from the United States" as having improved the health of millions around the world, according to the newspaper. Jon Liden, a spokesperson for the Global Fund, said, "We are concerned because of the economic challenges that a lot of industrial nations are facing."

"The U.S. budget for fiscal 2010 is not yet finalized," the Washington Post writes (Kinzie, 10/27). A live webcast of the Gates Foundation's Living Proof Project event will start at 7:00pm ET tonight here


Kaiser Health NewsThis article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Comments

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical.
Post a new comment
Post

While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses. Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for medical information you must always consult a medical professional before acting on any information provided.

Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their privacy principles.

Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential information.

Read the full Terms & Conditions.

You might also like...
Air pollution spikes drive unnecessary antibiotic use, fueling resistance