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We are so close to wiping polio out globally. Bill Gates has been trying hard. A few cases in Asia every year and we’re done. Probably less than 100 globally

We are so close to wiping polio out globally. Bill Gates has been trying hard. A few cases in Asia every year and we’re done. Probably less than 100 globally in a few countries. Bill Gates will get it. Anyway, while it’s great, and we should be happy, 400,000 kids will die from malaria in Africa this year. We could do more to save millions of lives over the next 10 years.

hu3 6y ago
I often see citations of Bill Gates charity being downvoted to oblivion on HN and I can never figure out why. Would appreciate if someone could enlighten me. Surely there must be a good reason.
- dylz 6y ago
  My assumption is that there are people that dislike how Gates earned his money.
  - koonsolo 6y ago
    By running a successful business? Some people really need to get a proper perspective on this. Did he bribe people? Did he extort people? Yeah, he was running a competitive business where he took advantage of his market position... just like any other business. But oh, "I love my iPhone, and Steve Jobs is therefore my hero. So Apple is good because it loves it's customers".
    - dtheodor 6y ago
      He bribed people for sure. Microsoft products had completely overtaken the public sector IT of several countries back in the 90s/00s. To get into the public sector of several third-world and not so third-world countries, bribing is more or less mandatory, business as usual. We've seen scandals like these dozens of times with all kinds of big companies. Bribing to get big public infrastructure projects from companies like Siemens, bribing to get pharma machinery into public hospitals. No such scandal was ever published for Microsoft that I know of, but this is how things work.
- woodruffw 6y ago
  I didn't downvote this (and don't generally do so), but here's a line of reasoning that might explain it: something has to go seriously wrong in the world for the lives of millions of people to be contingent upon the charitable sentiments of one obscenely wealthy man. Put another way: regardless of whether he's doing good, it shouldn't be the case that polio eradication depends on his material wealth. Celebrating the beneficial outcomes of Bill Gates' charity without reflecting on why he's able to give away billions of dollars without breaking a sweat invites us to ignore the fact that the system that enriched Bill Gates doesn't actually encourage him to do any good (and actually involved him doing quite a lot of harm).
  - rowanG077 6y ago
    I have the opposite sentiment. Things have been going extremely right for a single person to be able to go out and destroy issues that literately thousands upon thousands of people are affected by. Since governments of the developed world are mostly democratic no action to fix those issues in other countries is taken. This would have not otherwise been possible.
    - woodruffw 6y ago
      To be clear: it is good, morally speaking, for Bill Gates to contribute to the effort to eliminate polio. The observation is that Gates' ability to do so (i.e., his profound wealth) is completely unfixed to any good he produces: he could just as easily use his wealth for morally bad ends. In others words, we're extraordinarily lucky that this particular ultra-wealthy person has decided to do good things with (some) of their money. But grounding moral and humanitarian progress on a steady stream of luck seems shortsighted.
      - rowanG077 6y ago
        I don't think it's luck. A significant part of the very rich are donating huge amounts to charity. With the giving pledge being the most clear example. It's most certainly not a fluke that the mega rich are solving problem governments can't or won't.
- monetus 6y ago
  I would assume there to be a multitude of bad reasons, but as for a good one.. If you forced me to pick one driving one, the perception that he is laundering his reputation through philanthrophy would hopefully be it. A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad the good.
  - strictnein 6y ago
    His reputation didn't really need "laundering". He ran a software company, sometimes aggressively, but people act like he ran a private military corporation and trafficked in blood diamonds.
    - vlunkr 6y ago
      Agreed, outside of unix-like tech circles, I don't know that his reputation was ever that bad.
      - monetus 6y ago
        I would say the negative perception extends pretty far past unix-like tech circles, now at least.
- spacephysics 6y ago
  Without disclosing my opinions/take on Bill Gates, I think some see his charity as a means to gain power in specific regions to [insert conspiracy theory]. A tangentially related matter I see cited more often than not in these circles, are about an uptick in vaccine-caused paralysis occurring in India, causing the foundation to be kicked out. The argument being that an uptick in “non-polio acute flaccid paralysis” (NPAFP) was recorded in areas where the oral vaccine was distributed, and this subsequently got the foundation “kicked out of India” (quoted because, as source below states, this is false) [0] [0] https://fullfact.org/online/gates-polio-vaccine/ https://fullfact.org/online/gates-polio-vaccine/
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    There's no need to refer to "conspiracy theories" (although Bill Gates's close ties to Jeffrey Epstein after his 2007 trafficking conviction did not do him any favors there). The ulterior purposes of the Gates Foundation are pursued mostly in the open: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundat... https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-funding.php https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-fu...
    - mullingitover 6y ago
      That The Nation article seems to be implying that Gates is dodging his civic duties to pay taxes and support nice things like public infrastructure, but at the same time he's also avoiding paying for terrible things like funding the military which bombs things like weddings and Médecins Sans Frontières hospitals. Gates has done some shady things in his day, but I can't fault him for that one. His fortune is a drop in the bucket of the federal budget, but being able to control and target his charity makes a hell of a lot of difference in the world. It's not like the federal government was going to cure polio in Africa, but for a few billion more dollars in tax revenue.
- phenkdo 6y ago
  It is at its core, the issue of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Bill might be an imperfect angel, but he is an angel nonetheless in spending his fortune to help millions/billions out of abject poverty and suffering. That dwarfs almost any effort by other people. You could psychoanalyze this as acts of redemption, guilty conscience, seeking further world domination or whatnot, However it's undeniable he's helped many, many people and far, far,far more than his keyboard detractors ever would or could. And that's a very good thing IMHO.
- soperj 6y ago
  Because it doesn't just do good. It's completely screwed up public education in the states for instance.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    How so?
    - soperj 6y ago
      They're responsible for common core.
- koonsolo 6y ago
  It has everything to do with people's perspective of the world: rich people cannot be good people. If you gain something, somebody else needs to lose something. So for a rich person to get rich, he must have taken a lot from other, "nicer" people. Bill gates must really love swimming "uncle scrooge"-style in his billions. That's all he cares about. Everything he does must be to gain more billions, so he can swim in a bigger pool. Bill was also super competitive, so let's focus on that and forget that he made his money providing value to users and businesses. It's better to act like he stole the money in an unfair way. I personally feel very sad for a person that can't imagine that someone else could feel happy and satisfied by helping others, by having a huge impact on peoples lives in a positive way. I'm sure Bill and Melinda get more satisfaction of helping other people than looking at numbers on their bank account. But hey, that's not possible because he's rich, and therefore evil.
  - hu3 6y ago
    That makes sense. It's specially telling that the top voted reply to my message says Bill Gates donated Billions "without breaking a sweet". Clearly that person never read about his personal involvement and time commitment to numerous researches and social programs. It's 100% prejudice.
  - phenkdo 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing this viewpoint. This is the cancel culture run amok. While these people might very well be well-meaning, their ideological purity tests often end up being just sanctimonious holier-than-thou rants and tantrums.
- _jal 6y ago
  People dislike him for a number of reasons. I despised his actions through most of his tenure at M$. He destroyed some things I cared about and tried hard to destroy others, and I was nowhere near them and didn't use their products. I'm not really big on the idea of 'redemption' - my actions today do not erase what I've done in the past. But he has lived a pretty decent life since then, and tried to do good things. So good on him. Others hold grudges longer.
strictnein 6y ago
Bill Gates is also very, very heavily involved with defeating Malaria in Africa. His foundation has spent $2.9 Billion so far on it. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-health/malaria https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-health/mal...
- EGreg 6y ago
  All these anti vaxxer people are also pushing HCQ ... but it actually does prevent Malaria. If not for the side effects that compound over time, if the body was able to flush it out somehow, it could be very useful, no? That or finding ways to sterilize all anopheles mosquitoes, or do other mosquitoes carry it also
  - dnautics 6y ago
    IIRC malaria in africa is basically totally resistant to HCQ by now. There's places where resistance to Artemisinin is a thing.
  - robbiep 6y ago
    It’s called the advancement of science and it’s one of the reasons it is not generally a frontline treatment (because we have more effective treatments now, as well as resistance). You might as well say that a person is too phlegmatic and needs bleeding when they have gallstones. The world moves, move with it
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  I dont know how heavily involved he is. The man is a signature on a check. He has no medical credentials. All his fortune is built on stolen ip. He just writes checks.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    > I dont know Well good thing you started with that since you are clearly not familiar with him at all. He is very very well read and highly involved with the charity.
tonfa 6y ago
> A few cases in Asia every year and we’re done We also need to get rid of a vaccine-derived polio in Africa (and some places in Asia).
- femto 6y ago
  Details here for the curious: https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/q-a-detail/what-is-vaccine-derived-polio https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/q-a-detail/what-is-v... Summary: Whilst initial immunity is developing after vaccination, attenuated polio viruses can be excreted and cause a rare circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) outbreak. 21 outbreaks have occurred in the last 20 years, with 760 cases, out of 3 billion vaccinated and 10 million polio cases averted. cVDPV is averted by getting as many people in the community vaccinated within a 12-month window as possible. It naturally stops being a risk as the vaccinated population approaches 100%.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
HiroshiSan 6y ago
Not to take anything away from Bill, but why isn't Melinda mentioned just as much in these types of conversations?
- zapdrive 6y ago
  Why should she be?
- pm90 6y ago
  He is the public face of the foundation, giving ted talks and tweeting about it etc.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  Are you really curious? It's the same reason that if Oprah took her billions to try and solve some global problem with her husband Stedman, many mentions of the work they were doing would not mention Stedman. One is a famous individual who built up an obscene fortune, and the other person is married to them. And despite how involved their partner is deploying that wealth for the good of the world, people are just not going to mention the less famous one who didn't build up the fortune as often.
  - blnqr 6y ago
    Oprah Winfrey is not married to Stedman Graham
    - JamesBarney 6y ago
      Whoops, I misremembered.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    It's the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, so it would be apt to credit them both; erasing her does not do her, her work and her achievements justice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Gates#Awards_and_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Gates#Awards_and_recog...).
MaximumYComb 6y ago
It's because he is looking long term. Once you eradicate polio then it's gone forever. If he stops now to save more children from malaria instead then polio will return and the work so far wasted.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Could a disease (I just read it's a virus, til) like polio "spontaneously" reform or re-evolve if it's eradicated completely?
  - skinkestek 6y ago
    No. Once all "blueprints" of a disease (its RNA or DNA) is gone it is gone. In a worst case nature comes up with a similar one by mutating something similar, but then it is still a new thing.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Well, the dodo bird hasn't re-elolved yet, and beither did smallpox.
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    The evolution of exactly the same illness is difficult[1]. Polio is an Enterovirus[2]. There are many virus in that family, and most of them cause only a mild stomachache and fever. A week later you forget that you where ill. Moreover, in the 95% of the case the Polio virus only cause the same symptoms instead of the paralysis. One of the other virus can evolve and start to cause an illness that is very similar to Polio and we can decide to call it Polio, or PolioII, or some acronym like SPGWSPLI or something like that[3]. Nobody is sure about the cause of Acute flaccid myelitis [4], but it is somewhat similar to Polio and it is probably caused by an Enterovirus too. If something like that cause a big outbreak, we will hopefully make a vaccine and eradicate it too. [1] Where "difficult" means "almost impossible, but there is a chance". [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterovirus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterovirus [3] Old illness have cool names. I hope we can eradicate them all, but they have cool names like "Cholera". New illness get a bland acronym. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis
brudgers 6y ago
Bill Gates got involved with polio via $100 million matching fund to Rotary International about a decade ago. It was one of the foundation’s early healthcare initiatives and leveraged several decades of work by Rotarians around the world...polio eradication was the major project of Rotary at the time. Malaria is different in that there was not the same level of eradication infrastructure to leverage and different because it touches on drinking water and food chains in the non-human environment. Malaria is not mostly a vaccine distribution problem.

hu3 6y ago

I often see citations of Bill Gates charity being downvoted to oblivion on HN and I can never figure out why. Would appreciate if someone could enlighten me. Surely there must be a good reason.

dylz 6y ago
My assumption is that there are people that dislike how Gates earned his money.
- koonsolo 6y ago
  By running a successful business? Some people really need to get a proper perspective on this. Did he bribe people? Did he extort people? Yeah, he was running a competitive business where he took advantage of his market position... just like any other business. But oh, "I love my iPhone, and Steve Jobs is therefore my hero. So Apple is good because it loves it's customers".
  - dtheodor 6y ago
    He bribed people for sure. Microsoft products had completely overtaken the public sector IT of several countries back in the 90s/00s. To get into the public sector of several third-world and not so third-world countries, bribing is more or less mandatory, business as usual. We've seen scandals like these dozens of times with all kinds of big companies. Bribing to get big public infrastructure projects from companies like Siemens, bribing to get pharma machinery into public hospitals. No such scandal was ever published for Microsoft that I know of, but this is how things work.
woodruffw 6y ago
I didn't downvote this (and don't generally do so), but here's a line of reasoning that might explain it: something has to go seriously wrong in the world for the lives of millions of people to be contingent upon the charitable sentiments of one obscenely wealthy man. Put another way: regardless of whether he's doing good, it shouldn't be the case that polio eradication depends on his material wealth. Celebrating the beneficial outcomes of Bill Gates' charity without reflecting on why he's able to give away billions of dollars without breaking a sweat invites us to ignore the fact that the system that enriched Bill Gates doesn't actually encourage him to do any good (and actually involved him doing quite a lot of harm).
- rowanG077 6y ago
  I have the opposite sentiment. Things have been going extremely right for a single person to be able to go out and destroy issues that literately thousands upon thousands of people are affected by. Since governments of the developed world are mostly democratic no action to fix those issues in other countries is taken. This would have not otherwise been possible.
  - woodruffw 6y ago
    To be clear: it is good, morally speaking, for Bill Gates to contribute to the effort to eliminate polio. The observation is that Gates' ability to do so (i.e., his profound wealth) is completely unfixed to any good he produces: he could just as easily use his wealth for morally bad ends. In others words, we're extraordinarily lucky that this particular ultra-wealthy person has decided to do good things with (some) of their money. But grounding moral and humanitarian progress on a steady stream of luck seems shortsighted.
    - rowanG077 6y ago
      I don't think it's luck. A significant part of the very rich are donating huge amounts to charity. With the giving pledge being the most clear example. It's most certainly not a fluke that the mega rich are solving problem governments can't or won't.
monetus 6y ago
I would assume there to be a multitude of bad reasons, but as for a good one.. If you forced me to pick one driving one, the perception that he is laundering his reputation through philanthrophy would hopefully be it. A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad the good.
- strictnein 6y ago
  His reputation didn't really need "laundering". He ran a software company, sometimes aggressively, but people act like he ran a private military corporation and trafficked in blood diamonds.
  - vlunkr 6y ago
    Agreed, outside of unix-like tech circles, I don't know that his reputation was ever that bad.
    - monetus 6y ago
      I would say the negative perception extends pretty far past unix-like tech circles, now at least.
spacephysics 6y ago
Without disclosing my opinions/take on Bill Gates, I think some see his charity as a means to gain power in specific regions to [insert conspiracy theory]. A tangentially related matter I see cited more often than not in these circles, are about an uptick in vaccine-caused paralysis occurring in India, causing the foundation to be kicked out. The argument being that an uptick in “non-polio acute flaccid paralysis” (NPAFP) was recorded in areas where the oral vaccine was distributed, and this subsequently got the foundation “kicked out of India” (quoted because, as source below states, this is false) [0] [0] https://fullfact.org/online/gates-polio-vaccine/ https://fullfact.org/online/gates-polio-vaccine/
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  There's no need to refer to "conspiracy theories" (although Bill Gates's close ties to Jeffrey Epstein after his 2007 trafficking conviction did not do him any favors there). The ulterior purposes of the Gates Foundation are pursued mostly in the open: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy/ https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundat... https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-funding.php https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-fu...
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    That The Nation article seems to be implying that Gates is dodging his civic duties to pay taxes and support nice things like public infrastructure, but at the same time he's also avoiding paying for terrible things like funding the military which bombs things like weddings and Médecins Sans Frontières hospitals. Gates has done some shady things in his day, but I can't fault him for that one. His fortune is a drop in the bucket of the federal budget, but being able to control and target his charity makes a hell of a lot of difference in the world. It's not like the federal government was going to cure polio in Africa, but for a few billion more dollars in tax revenue.
phenkdo 6y ago
It is at its core, the issue of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Bill might be an imperfect angel, but he is an angel nonetheless in spending his fortune to help millions/billions out of abject poverty and suffering. That dwarfs almost any effort by other people. You could psychoanalyze this as acts of redemption, guilty conscience, seeking further world domination or whatnot, However it's undeniable he's helped many, many people and far, far,far more than his keyboard detractors ever would or could. And that's a very good thing IMHO.
soperj 6y ago
Because it doesn't just do good. It's completely screwed up public education in the states for instance.
- manigandham 6y ago
  How so?
  - soperj 6y ago
    They're responsible for common core.
koonsolo 6y ago
It has everything to do with people's perspective of the world: rich people cannot be good people. If you gain something, somebody else needs to lose something. So for a rich person to get rich, he must have taken a lot from other, "nicer" people. Bill gates must really love swimming "uncle scrooge"-style in his billions. That's all he cares about. Everything he does must be to gain more billions, so he can swim in a bigger pool. Bill was also super competitive, so let's focus on that and forget that he made his money providing value to users and businesses. It's better to act like he stole the money in an unfair way. I personally feel very sad for a person that can't imagine that someone else could feel happy and satisfied by helping others, by having a huge impact on peoples lives in a positive way. I'm sure Bill and Melinda get more satisfaction of helping other people than looking at numbers on their bank account. But hey, that's not possible because he's rich, and therefore evil.
- hu3 6y ago
  That makes sense. It's specially telling that the top voted reply to my message says Bill Gates donated Billions "without breaking a sweet". Clearly that person never read about his personal involvement and time commitment to numerous researches and social programs. It's 100% prejudice.
- phenkdo 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing this viewpoint. This is the cancel culture run amok. While these people might very well be well-meaning, their ideological purity tests often end up being just sanctimonious holier-than-thou rants and tantrums.
_jal 6y ago
People dislike him for a number of reasons. I despised his actions through most of his tenure at M$. He destroyed some things I cared about and tried hard to destroy others, and I was nowhere near them and didn't use their products. I'm not really big on the idea of 'redemption' - my actions today do not erase what I've done in the past. But he has lived a pretty decent life since then, and tried to do good things. So good on him. Others hold grudges longer.

strictnein 6y ago

Bill Gates is also very, very heavily involved with defeating Malaria in Africa. His foundation has spent $2.9 Billion so far on it. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-health/malaria https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-health/mal...

EGreg 6y ago
All these anti vaxxer people are also pushing HCQ ... but it actually does prevent Malaria. If not for the side effects that compound over time, if the body was able to flush it out somehow, it could be very useful, no? That or finding ways to sterilize all anopheles mosquitoes, or do other mosquitoes carry it also
- dnautics 6y ago
  IIRC malaria in africa is basically totally resistant to HCQ by now. There's places where resistance to Artemisinin is a thing.
- robbiep 6y ago
  It’s called the advancement of science and it’s one of the reasons it is not generally a frontline treatment (because we have more effective treatments now, as well as resistance). You might as well say that a person is too phlegmatic and needs bleeding when they have gallstones. The world moves, move with it
jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
I dont know how heavily involved he is. The man is a signature on a check. He has no medical credentials. All his fortune is built on stolen ip. He just writes checks.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  > I dont know Well good thing you started with that since you are clearly not familiar with him at all. He is very very well read and highly involved with the charity.

tonfa 6y ago

> A few cases in Asia every year and we’re done We also need to get rid of a vaccine-derived polio in Africa (and some places in Asia).

femto 6y ago
Details here for the curious: https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/q-a-detail/what-is-vaccine-derived-polio https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/q-a-detail/what-is-v... Summary: Whilst initial immunity is developing after vaccination, attenuated polio viruses can be excreted and cause a rare circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) outbreak. 21 outbreaks have occurred in the last 20 years, with 760 cases, out of 3 billion vaccinated and 10 million polio cases averted. cVDPV is averted by getting as many people in the community vaccinated within a 12-month window as possible. It naturally stops being a risk as the vaccinated population approaches 100%.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

HiroshiSan 6y ago

Not to take anything away from Bill, but why isn't Melinda mentioned just as much in these types of conversations?

zapdrive 6y ago
Why should she be?
pm90 6y ago
He is the public face of the foundation, giving ted talks and tweeting about it etc.
JamesBarney 6y ago
Are you really curious? It's the same reason that if Oprah took her billions to try and solve some global problem with her husband Stedman, many mentions of the work they were doing would not mention Stedman. One is a famous individual who built up an obscene fortune, and the other person is married to them. And despite how involved their partner is deploying that wealth for the good of the world, people are just not going to mention the less famous one who didn't build up the fortune as often.
- blnqr 6y ago
  Oprah Winfrey is not married to Stedman Graham
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    Whoops, I misremembered.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, so it would be apt to credit them both; erasing her does not do her, her work and her achievements justice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Gates#Awards_and_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Gates#Awards_and_recog...).

MaximumYComb 6y ago

It's because he is looking long term. Once you eradicate polio then it's gone forever. If he stops now to save more children from malaria instead then polio will return and the work so far wasted.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Could a disease (I just read it's a virus, til) like polio "spontaneously" reform or re-evolve if it's eradicated completely?
- skinkestek 6y ago
  No. Once all "blueprints" of a disease (its RNA or DNA) is gone it is gone. In a worst case nature comes up with a similar one by mutating something similar, but then it is still a new thing.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Well, the dodo bird hasn't re-elolved yet, and beither did smallpox.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  The evolution of exactly the same illness is difficult[1]. Polio is an Enterovirus[2]. There are many virus in that family, and most of them cause only a mild stomachache and fever. A week later you forget that you where ill. Moreover, in the 95% of the case the Polio virus only cause the same symptoms instead of the paralysis. One of the other virus can evolve and start to cause an illness that is very similar to Polio and we can decide to call it Polio, or PolioII, or some acronym like SPGWSPLI or something like that[3]. Nobody is sure about the cause of Acute flaccid myelitis [4], but it is somewhat similar to Polio and it is probably caused by an Enterovirus too. If something like that cause a big outbreak, we will hopefully make a vaccine and eradicate it too. [1] Where "difficult" means "almost impossible, but there is a chance". [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterovirus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterovirus [3] Old illness have cool names. I hope we can eradicate them all, but they have cool names like "Cholera". New illness get a bland acronym. [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis

brudgers 6y ago

Bill Gates got involved with polio via $100 million matching fund to Rotary International about a decade ago. It was one of the foundation’s early healthcare initiatives and leveraged several decades of work by Rotarians around the world...polio eradication was the major project of Rotary at the time. Malaria is different in that there was not the same level of eradication infrastructure to leverage and different because it touches on drinking water and food chains in the non-human environment. Malaria is not mostly a vaccine distribution problem.