-FOR MORE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CLINTON ADMINSTRATION'S FAVORITE CORPORATE TARGET'S NOW FORMER C.E.O., TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.Bloomberg News
Mar 24 2000 4:13PM
Redmond, Washington, March 24 (Bloomberg)--Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates's Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it will donate more than $133 million to help fight disease and reduce infant mortality rates in developing countries.
The grants coincide with World TB Day, and $25 million will go to developing new treatments for tuberculosis. The disease has become resistant to most available therapies, said Dr. Gordon W. Perkin, director of the foundation's Global Health Program.
Save the Children, a nonprofit development and relief organization, received a $50 million grant to improve access to low-cost technologies and help reduce the estimated 5.4 million deaths of newborns annually. The award is the largest private grant to Save the Children in the organization's 68-year history. Funds to fight malaria, hookworm and a skin disease known as leishmaniasis also were announced by the Seattle-based foundation.
Gates began his philanthropy in 1995 through a trust, which evolved into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with assets of about $21.8 billion, or about a quarter of Gates's wealth. The foundation focuses on improving lives through advances in health and education, and also funds Internet-access programs.
The foundation is part of Gates's pledge to give back some of the wealth he's accumulated from the growth of Microsoft, and is led by his father, William H. Gates Sr. It set aside $1 billion last year for a scholarship program to help minority students finish undergraduate and graduate degrees, and committed about another $1 billion for the development and delivery of vaccines in developing countries.
(text of March 24, 2000 My AOL.COM Science article)
© Copyright 2000 Bloomberg L.P. BLOOMBERG, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Financial Markets, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg News Radio are trademarks, tradenames and service marks of Bloomberg L.P.
-FOR MORE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CLINTON ADMINSTRATION'S FAVORITE CORPORATE TARGET'S NOW FORMER C.E.O., TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.