Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates met Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and praised India’s triumph over polio, even as the software tycoon’s foundation is also helping India contain HIV/AIDS. The country has 2.5 million people infected with the deadly disease. India has not reported any new polio case since last year. Following this, the World Health Organisation (WHO) removed India’s name from the list of polio endemic countries. Azad said the Gates foundation, which also provides financial and infrastructural help to India on containing malaria and tuberculosis, has “extended catalytic support to innovations in health, particularly in HIV/AIDS and polio.”
He said support from Gates Foundation is valuable. Apart from polio – a paralytic disease, the two also discussed the country’s initiative in bringing down HIV/AIDS infections. ”He (Gates) said that in fact the strides made by India (on the health front) go beyond his expectations,” a statement issued here said. The meeting between them lasted one-and-half hours. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the government partners in eradicating polio from the country. The minister also said that they have earmarked this year as the year of intensifying routine immunisation programme in the country. Azad said the Gates Foundation has helped in establishing Immunisation Technical Support Unit (ITSU) in order to accelerate coverage and to ensure system preparedness for new vaccines.
Source: IANS
I raise funds for an NGO’s health brnach. Programs are categorized three different ways.Eradication campaigns are few and far between. Eradication efforts want to kill every last instance of the disease. This is not possible if the vectors are very efficient or if there are animal reservoirs of the disease. As near as this admittedly green individual can tell, only polio and guinea worm disease are really capable of being called eradication’ campaigns. As long as progress is being shown, this is relatively easy to get funds for.Elimination denotes complete removal of a disease in a specific location. The Onchocerciasis Elimination Program of the Americas is an example of a true elimination program. It’s worth it to note that this term is -very- overused by the NGO community at large, especially the fund raising parts. Elimination is seen as more desirable than the final classification, Control.A Control program is analogous to your charity’. There is no way with current technology that we can eliminate malaria (which kills 80,000 people a month), but it would be silly to ignore this disease in favor of an eradication or elimination effort that had an infinitely smaller impact on the human population. Control programs seek to knock the prevalence of infection down to a certain percentage, and then move on to more endemic areas. Despite the previously mentioned statistic, malaria is still significantly more difficult to raise funds for in comparison to an eradication, elimination or emergency cause.I’d like to send you a .pdf of a study on why sudden emergencies attract more funding than long term problems, and what non-profits can do to change this. While I am relatively sure you wont agree with Epstein’s conclusions (especially on how and why people donate), I think it still would be useful for you.-Randy