By Ndidi Chukwu
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in its 2016 report said it has saved over 122 million children from death in developing countries through its global health intervention programs.
This 122 million lives saved includes children who have had access to vaccines and were able to get full immunization against vaccine preventable diseases in their life time, fight and treatment against malnutrition, Family Planning, which has given more women the opportunity to space births and survive childbirth, poverty eradication through women empowerment, and other health interventions.
Warren Buffett, Melinda and Bill Gates
Report released by the foundation on Tuesday February, 14 2017 as an Annual Letter addressed to Warren Buffett to inform him about the stunning gains of saving the lives of the poorest people in the world,
said countries in Africa especially in Nigeria benefitted and have made the last 25 years a time worth investing in.
Bill Gates said: “This incredible progress has been made possible not only by the generosity of Warren and other philanthropists, the charitable giving of individuals across the world, and the efforts of the poor on their own behalf, but also by the huge contributions made by donor nations, which account for the vast majority of global health and development funding”
It also showed that the number of children dying before their 5th birthday have been reduced by half,
According to Melinda Gates, “Every September, the UN announces the number of children under five who died the previous year. Every year, this number breaks my heart and gives me hope. It’s tragic that so many children are dying, but every year more children live.”
“More children survived in 2015 than in 2014. More survived in 2014 than in 2013, and so on. If you add it all up, 122 million children under age five have been saved over the past 25 years. These are children who would have died if mortality rates had stayed where they were in 1990.”
