BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhuanet) — Instead of just keeping it under control, Bill and Melinda Gates told more than 300 malaria scientists and policy makers at a forum Wednesday they should seek to wipe out the disease worldwide.
“It’s a long-term goal; it won’t come soon,” Melinda Gates said, “but to aspire to anything less is just far too timid a goal for the age we’re in. It’s a waste of the world’s talent and it’s a waste of the world’s intelligence, and it’s wrong and unfair to the people who are suffering from this disease.”
She said the world wasn’t ready for a long fight against malaria 50 years ago, and when drugs and pesticides started failing, enthusiasm faded and funding almost disappeared. Malaria was eliminated from the United States and other developed countries at that time.
She is co-chairwoman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has committed 860 million U.S. dollars to malaria programs and another 650 million dollars to support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Bill Gates promised the foundation’s enthusiasm for the cause would never lag. He said many others would contribute money and commitment as long as those attending the organization’s first malaria forum keep showing the world they can achieve their goals.
”If you show the world that we can end this disease, you will unleash the energy and the caring the commitment we need to meet that goal,” he said. “We’re not done and we will not stop working until malaria is eradicated.”
Malaria kills more than a million people each year, most of them children. Deaths doubled in Africa over the past 20 years as malaria grew resistant to existing drugs and insecticides. New efforts to control the spread of the disease and develop new medicine and vaccines are starting to show results, according to a UNICEF report issued Tuesday.
Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, urged scientists and policy makers not be territorial in their work or waste time debating whether eradication is possible because, “as we are talking here, children are dying.”
(Agencies)
