Bill and Melinda Throw Another $10 Billion at Vaccine Development

In an apparent effort to atone for every Microsoft error message, the Gateses are committing $10 billion USD over the next 10 years for the research, development, and delivery of mortality-reducing vaccines to "the world's poorest countries." Some details of the financial pledge are available in today's press release from the couple's philanthropic foundation. The donated money is in addition to the foundation's already committed $4.5 billion for vaccine R&D.

The foundation's new support is motivated by recent data from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which showed that a 90% vaccination-coverage level* in developing countries would prevent the deaths of about 7.6 million young children during the next decade. The number of lives saved could be ramped up to 8.7 million, if a malaria vaccine is introduced in the year 2014.

Another inspiration for the Gateses' pledge is the success of the rotavirus vaccine. In this week's NEJM, pooled results of a randomized, multicenter trial in South Africa (n = 3166 infants) and Malawi (n = 1733 infants) showed that a live, oral rotavirus vaccine (Rotarix; GSK) reduced cases of severe gastroenteritis due to the organism by 61% (4.9% vs 1.9%).** 

Also reported in this week's issue, the recent introduction of rotavirus vaccines in Mexico reduced diarrhea-related deaths by 35% among children younger than 5 years of age (18.1 vs 11.8 deaths per 100,000 children). The life-saving benefit of vaccination was even more apparent among infants younger than 11 months (41% mortality reduction).

Vaccine researchers looking for a chunk of the Gateses' big money can start here. But the foundation only accepts letters of inquiry (LOIs) from 501(c)(3) organizations and other nonprofits. Individuals need not apply.

* Which would include new vaccines for diarrheal illnesses and pneumonia.

** Although there was no significant difference in mortality, 2.5% vs 2.6%.