Australia and Bill Gates boost vaccines for poor countries

                                                                                                       


Bill Gates says he is confident that Australia and other stakeholders would ensure the 3.700 million dollars to finance the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization
LONDON, GREAT BRITAIN (12/JUN/2011) .- Australia will commit to provide 200 million Australian dollars (220 million dollars) in an international donors conference on Monday to support a global alliance whose purpose is to save the lives of 4 million children in poor countries by 2015.
The Australian Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, said the aid would be provided over three years from 2011 to 2013 and would mark the highest standards for other donors conference in London.
In an exclusive joint interview with Rudd on Sunday, the billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said he was confident that Australia and other stakeholders would ensure the 3.700 million dollars to finance the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI for short) to 2015.
"What I see in the international community is a growing commitment to (...) vaccination as one of the most effective ways to help," said Rudd.
"This is a great help," he said.
GAVI is a nonprofit organization which funds vaccination programs for poor countries who can not afford Western prices, says that if he can raise the additional $ 3.700 million needed could prevent 4 million child deaths by 2015 immunization campaigns covering more than 240 million children.
 "These are vaccines that children receive and rich irony is that rich kids are less susceptible to these diseases," Gates said.
"However, success in the future we will have, I'm sure going to give us the money to buy vaccines for all children," he said.
Gates, Microsoft founder of the company rejected the criticism that GAVI pay excessively high prices for vaccines, raising the profits of big pharmaceutical companies.
 "We worked very hard to know exactly what it costs to produce these vaccines, and the same kind of profit-centered approach that I developed at Microsoft is applied in an even more strict in this work - because every dollar affects many lives who save, "he said.