The Gates Foundation Reboots Health Initiative In Face of Bad News on Polio

Vaccination teams prepare for the day’s work in South Sokoto NigeriaGivingTracker| Bill Gates has bad news in his war on polio. He’s losing it.

Polio’s spreading in countries where the Gates global health brigade believed they had stopped it cold, evading a two-decade-long, $8.2 billion effort to kill it off. The Gates Foundation has invested about 10% of that total.

In 2003, Islamic leaders in northern Nigeria spread rumors that polio vaccines sterilized Muslim girls. Leaders halted vaccinations, allowing the virus to spread again to 20 countries where it was considered to be eradicated.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will announce their new health strategy this week. But there are problems in a polio-fighting effort that’s now $1.4 billion short of its financial goals, with Gates saying he cannot make up the difference. Read on in Giving.