Bill Gates and the WHO

Written by: Jessica Burnham and Nicolle Johnson

The General Assembly

The General Assembly Room

The General Assembly Room

The WHO, in this case, is not the 1960's English rock band but the World Health Organization and for our first meeting at the United Nations (17 May), Jess and I were able to sit in on the Invited Speaker session of the World Health Assembly (WHA) where Bill Gates addressed the assembly about the importance of preventative care in the form of vaccinations.

Bill Gates Being Welcomed

The inability of many individuals, particularly vulnerable children, to access adequate healthcare is a persistent global problem that has yet to be strategically addressed and solved.

Bill Gates addressed the existence of diseases such as polio, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, meningitis, rotavirus, and pneumonia and proposed the solution of increasing access to vaccines.

“I had built my life around the idea that innovation is for everyone. When I began to understand how billions of people are deprived of its benefits, it made me angry. That's when I decided that my personal wealth would be used to help confront that inequity,” Gates said of his determination to alleviate the global poor of preventable diseases.

In the clip below, Gates expresses his reason for dedicating his full-time work to the Gates Foundation and will continue to do so for the rest of his life.

He proceeded to discuss the important role vaccines have to play in disease eradication. “They can be inexpensive, they are easy to deliver, and they are proven to protect children lifelong from disease,” Gates said.

Bill Gates Addressing the WHA

He confidently termed this the “Decade of Vaccines,” calling on world leaders to make improving access to vaccines a top priority. This calls for further investment he explained, but this investment will pay off. Through it, countless lives will be saved and economies will thrive.

“As we free billions of people from the relentless burden of sickness and death [we] will unleash more human potential than ever before” Gates said.

Gates called for at least 90 percent coverage at the country level and 80 percent coverage at the district level. Global actors must do what it takes, he said, to reach the most vulnerable children in order to effectively achieve zero cases.

After His Address

Therein will the world realize that global health is essential to global prosperity.

“It might be the most difficult thing we’ve ever done, but it will also be the most important,” Gates said.

For more information or to read the full speech visit www.who.int/en/

This was an interesting session to sit in on, especially for my first, because I (Nicolle) have been an advocate of preventative care for many years. I became aware of the need for preventative care during my years working with Sentara HealthCare in Virginia Beach, VA, and see the benefit of this from both a personal and business point.

The lack of standard preventative care, such as vaccinations, results in more than 8 millions preventable deaths each year, and this is just for children under 5 years old. For Americans or others in developed nations these deaths rarely happen anymore, which means that 90% of these preventable deaths occur in developing nations. Vaccinations are an inexpensive way to decrease morbidity in the regions of the world that need it most.

Find out how you can help this cause by clicking this link http://www.gatesfoundation.org/vaccines/Pages/decade-of-vaccines.aspx.