Overview

Every year, millions of people in the developing world die from diseases that have been virtually eliminated in the developed world. Malaria, to take just one example, kills 1 million people annually—most of them children in Africa. Lifesaving vaccines, drugs, and other health tools often fail to reach those who need them most, and very little health research is devoted to meeting the needs of poor countries.

Our Global Health program prioritizes the diseases and health conditions that represent the greatest burden in developing countries and the solutions that promise to improve health for the greatest number of people. We pursue a two-pronged strategy: We help make sure that proven health tools are widely accessible, and we help drive the development of new tools to prevent and treat serious diseases.

In 2005, our global health grantees continued to make important progress in developing and delivering these tools. In the fight against malaria, grantees made gains in expanding access to anti-malarial bed nets and treatments and in advancing the development of more effective malaria medicines and a vaccine. In the fight against another deadly infectious disease, meningitis, the Meningitis Vaccine Project—in partnership with researchers in India—took important steps forward on clinical trials of a new vaccine. And the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, a major effort to promote innovation in global health research, announced 43 groundbreaking projects to discover new ways of preventing and treating a range of diseases in developing countries.

Foundation grantees also focused on raising the visibility of global health issues and on mobilizing new champions and resources for global health. For example, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization garnered support from five donor countries for a major new initiative that will fund immunization programs in developing countries. The year concluded with a landmark summit on global health in New York and several high-profile media events that helped build public awareness of global health issues.