Bill Gates’ Wake-Up Call

Software entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist

In 2000, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda created their foundation to “reduce inequality.” He spoke about their wake-up call. All over the world primary health care plays a vital role of keeping communities healthy at the same time helping to increase access to the health care system thereby offering better health outcomes. The first point of contact with health services, primary care has been described by many as the entrance to the entire health system, its interconnecting principles being of equity, access, empowerment, community self-determination and inter-sectoral collaboration.

“Melinda and I had traveled in Africa and we were surprised to see what conditions in poor countries were like. And then we started reading about health and we were shocked to find that over a million children were dying from malaria every year. Children were dying of diarrhea even though there was a vaccine being used in richer countries that could prevent that. And so, we realized that was incredible injustice and so, we should join together with other people to advance global health and save lives. We’re lucky enough to have the wealth that was created by the success of Microsoft, as well as support that Warren Buffett provided from his business success and so, the question was: “How can we take this money and give it back to the world to help those most in need, to save lives, improve lives in the best way possible?” Our foundation has global health as substantially its largest priority,” Bill Gates tells Brut.

Once the world's richest person, the software entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist, along with his wife, established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 to donate the bulk of their fortune to improving health care and reducing poverty around the world. They created the foundation, which has an endowment of more than $50 billion, after reading that hundreds of thousands of children in poor countries were dying of diarrhea.

Brut.