The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has turned its attention to the Zika virus outbreak.
Bill Gates said on Tuesday in Washington at the release of the foundation’s annual letter that the response to the crisis, which may be linked to devastating birth defects in South America, had been better than for the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa.
“We got deeply involved in Ebola, and we’re already getting deeply involved in Zika.”
Gates in the letter said the foundation was trying to bring the “best scientists together, and all the best thinking together, with CDC, with WHO,” to look at disease populations, mosquito control, diagnostics and vaccines.
“The foundation has helped make great strides against diseases among the world’s poorest nations.
“It distributed grants of nearly 4 billion dollars in 2014 and had 43.5 billion dollars at the end of 2014,” he said.
Gates noted that the Zika crisis definitely caught everybody by surprise, as the virus until recently, did not appear to be a substantial problem.
“It’s another tragedy, and new medical technology can help, but it never comes overnight the way that we would like it to.
“Ebola, as tragic as it was, the world, including all these scientists, are coming together a lot faster this time around,” he said.
Gates said studies under way were attempting to prove whether it was responsible for a surge in a birth defect called microcephaly that can cause serious brain damage and developmental problems.
He said the best way to tackle the crisis was by getting rid of mosquitoes that carry and spread the disease.
Gates noted that the foundation had invested in many things for a long time, which includes; how to either change mosquitoes not to carry viruses or how you change mosquitoes so their populations go down dramatically.
“Those are technologies that we were working on to get rid of dengue and malaria, because the same breed of mosquito carries dengue and Zika,” he said.
Co-chair of the foundation, Melinda Gates said this year’s letter was a call to action for young people to get involved in taking on the world’s inequity problems, focused on energy and time.
She said it highlighted the need for new sources of cheap carbon emission-free energy that would enable more than a billion people in poor nations living without electricity to enjoy conveniences long taken for granted in the developed world.
Bill said the letter predicted in within the next 15 years, and especially if young people get involved, the world would discover a clean energy breakthrough that would save our planet and power the world.
She also focused on the disparity of time women spend on unpaid work compared with men and how that prevents families from rising above poverty.
Gates said bringing modern conveniences to the poorest nations would help free women to earn money for their families and pay better attention to healthcare and nutrition.
“If you want to transform society and lift people out of poverty, you also have to look at this from a women’s perspective.
“Poverty is sexist,” she said. (Reuters/NAN)