Foundation begins 2010 with Haiti relief, ‘Decade of vaccines’

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started off 2010 with grants totaling $1.5 million to the Haiti relief effort and a pledge of $10 billion over ten years to step up research, development and delivery of vaccines around the world.

A grant of $1 million was given to Catholic Relief Services, which has experienced personnel and a stock of emergency supplies in Haiti. The purpose of this grant was to contribute to immediate relief efforts and provide emergency services including shelter, food, water and sanitation.

A grant of $500,000 was awarded to Partners in Health. In addition to providing immediate emergency supplies to victims of the earthquake, the organization will offer medium-term medical care to those in need.

Based on projections from a model developed by a consortium led by the Institute of International Programs at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Foundation believes that 7.6 million deaths among children younger than 5 can be avoided with increased vaccine coverage. The vaccine grants will be distributed to several organizations from 2010 to 2019.

“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” Bill Gates said in a statement.