Gates Foundation sponsors $100m of Aids vaccine research
11/10/2007
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced sponsorship of $100 million (£49 million) for research into Aids vaccines and other global health challenges.
Hundreds of early-stage research projects from a wide range of disciplines are to benefit from the handout - an extension of the Gates Foundation's Global Health Program - with a particular emphasis being placed on "creative, unorthodox ideas".
"The biggest advances in health often come from unexpected places," read a statement from Tachi Yamada, president of the Global Health Program. "To effectively tackle diseases like Aids and malaria, we need to encourage the best and brightest minds to take risks on novel ideas.
"Not all will bear fruit, but those that do could revolutionise the field of global health."
The aid package was announced during a meeting of 700 global health researchers in the South African legislative capital of Cape Town. Notable attendees included the Reverend Desmond Tutu and the chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Graca Machel.
Last year alone the Gates Foundation handed out $1.56 billion in grants and since its inception in 2000 it has pledged a total of $13.6 billion. Its latest funding package is to be disbursed gradually in grants between 2008 and 2012.
HIV/Aids and malaria are two of the world's most pressing health crises, claiming 2.9 million and 1.3 million lives respectively each year.
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