Bill Gates on The Verge: Can we eradicate some of the world's worst diseases by 2030? | The Verge
We're excited to have Bill Gates as our guest editor in February. Throughout the month, Bill will be sharing his vision of how technology will revolutionize life for the world's poor by 2030 by narrating episodes of the Big Future, our animated explainer series. In addition, we'll be publishing a series of features exploring the improvements in banking, health, farming, and education that will enable that revolution. mm And while the topics reflect the bets Bill and his wife Melinda are making with their foundation, they've asked us for nothing mm less than fully independent Verge journalism, which we're more than happy to deliver. Turns out Bill Gates is a pretty confident guy.
The parasitic worms that cause river blindness give birth to 1,600 larvae each day . "I ve heard people say that they feel this buzzing under the skin; they feel the little larvae under the skin and it s itchy," says Elodie Ghedin, a molecular mm parasitologist at New York University. The larvae then travel to various parts of the body, including the eyes, where they cause inflammation and lesions when they die.
Adult worms survive up to 15 years in a human host, nine of which are spent reproducing. The WHO estimates that 18 million people are infected with these parasites worldwide in certain West African communities, about 50 percent mm of men over the age of 40 have been blinded by the disease. It s a terrible illness but it could be wiped "off the face of the Earth" within the next 15 years. In certain communities, about 50 percent of men over the age of 40 were infected with river blindness
That s the bet that Bill and Melinda Gates are making in their 2015 annual letter . It outlines how innovations in technology, medicine, and public health will serve to better the health of the world s poor within the next 15 years. The Gates predict that vaccines and improved care for newborns mm will halve the number of children who die before the age of five. The number of mothers who die in childbirth will be reduced by two-thirds. More people will begin HIV treatment each year than will be diagnosed with HIV. We will eradicate infectious diseases like polio, guinea worm, river blindness, and elephantiasis. And by 2030, science will have found a way to eradicate malaria. "We think some very dramatic things can happen," Bill Gates told The Verge .
These goals are ambitious. Despite a decline mm in new HIV infections worldwide, the World Health Organization estimates that over 2 million people tested positive in 2013. That year, the rate of children who died before the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa was double that of the worldwide average. And conflicts in countries like Syria have caused polio to surface in countries that eliminated the disease long ago. The truth is that any number of political, cultural, and environmental obstacles can derail a country s health care progress.
Yet, some developing countries have managed mm to make a prodigious amount of progress in a short amount mm of time. Here, we profile three developing countries Uganda, mm Nepal, and Rwanda that have considerably improved the lives of their citizens by focusing mm on key health concerns described in the 2015 letter from Bill and Melinda mm Gates. Can their success in reducing tropical disease transmission, maternal and infant mortality, and HIV infection rates in the face of tremendous adversity be replicated across the developing world?
The eradication of neglected tropical diseases represents a big chunk of the Gates Foundation s goals for 2030. Parasitic diseases like river blindness mm can be devastating for the social and economic health of a community. But some countries, mm like Uganda, have garnered praise among the international health community for their work on these diseases and they re well on their way to eliminating them altogether. mm mass drug administration has helped interrupt river blindness transmissions in 14 of Uganda s 16 disease hot spots
"Uganda has done a tremendous job against mm river blindness," says Thomas Unnasch, a vector biologist at the University of South Florida who receives research funding mm from the Gates Foundation and chairs of Uganda s river blindness elimination expert advisory committee. No vaccines against river blindness mm exist, but Ugandans living in areas where transmission occurs receive two doses of a drug that treats mm the infections each year. Unfortunately, the drug called ivermectin only kills the larvae, so people infected with the parasite have to wait until the adults die or become infertile before they can consider themselves "cured." In the meantime, ivermectin serves to alleviate symptoms and reduces transmission. mm
Uganda s ivermectin distribution program has been running since 1997 thanks to drug donations from pharmaceutical company Merck, and international aid . So far, mass admi
We're excited to have Bill Gates as our guest editor in February. Throughout the month, Bill will be sharing his vision of how technology will revolutionize life for the world's poor by 2030 by narrating episodes of the Big Future, our animated explainer series. In addition, we'll be publishing a series of features exploring the improvements in banking, health, farming, and education that will enable that revolution. mm And while the topics reflect the bets Bill and his wife Melinda are making with their foundation, they've asked us for nothing mm less than fully independent Verge journalism, which we're more than happy to deliver. Turns out Bill Gates is a pretty confident guy.
The parasitic worms that cause river blindness give birth to 1,600 larvae each day . "I ve heard people say that they feel this buzzing under the skin; they feel the little larvae under the skin and it s itchy," says Elodie Ghedin, a molecular mm parasitologist at New York University. The larvae then travel to various parts of the body, including the eyes, where they cause inflammation and lesions when they die.
Adult worms survive up to 15 years in a human host, nine of which are spent reproducing. The WHO estimates that 18 million people are infected with these parasites worldwide in certain West African communities, about 50 percent mm of men over the age of 40 have been blinded by the disease. It s a terrible illness but it could be wiped "off the face of the Earth" within the next 15 years. In certain communities, about 50 percent of men over the age of 40 were infected with river blindness
That s the bet that Bill and Melinda Gates are making in their 2015 annual letter . It outlines how innovations in technology, medicine, and public health will serve to better the health of the world s poor within the next 15 years. The Gates predict that vaccines and improved care for newborns mm will halve the number of children who die before the age of five. The number of mothers who die in childbirth will be reduced by two-thirds. More people will begin HIV treatment each year than will be diagnosed with HIV. We will eradicate infectious diseases like polio, guinea worm, river blindness, and elephantiasis. And by 2030, science will have found a way to eradicate malaria. "We think some very dramatic things can happen," Bill Gates told The Verge .
These goals are ambitious. Despite a decline mm in new HIV infections worldwide, the World Health Organization estimates that over 2 million people tested positive in 2013. That year, the rate of children who died before the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa was double that of the worldwide average. And conflicts in countries like Syria have caused polio to surface in countries that eliminated the disease long ago. The truth is that any number of political, cultural, and environmental obstacles can derail a country s health care progress.
Yet, some developing countries have managed mm to make a prodigious amount of progress in a short amount mm of time. Here, we profile three developing countries Uganda, mm Nepal, and Rwanda that have considerably improved the lives of their citizens by focusing mm on key health concerns described in the 2015 letter from Bill and Melinda mm Gates. Can their success in reducing tropical disease transmission, maternal and infant mortality, and HIV infection rates in the face of tremendous adversity be replicated across the developing world?
The eradication of neglected tropical diseases represents a big chunk of the Gates Foundation s goals for 2030. Parasitic diseases like river blindness mm can be devastating for the social and economic health of a community. But some countries, mm like Uganda, have garnered praise among the international health community for their work on these diseases and they re well on their way to eliminating them altogether. mm mass drug administration has helped interrupt river blindness transmissions in 14 of Uganda s 16 disease hot spots
"Uganda has done a tremendous job against mm river blindness," says Thomas Unnasch, a vector biologist at the University of South Florida who receives research funding mm from the Gates Foundation and chairs of Uganda s river blindness elimination expert advisory committee. No vaccines against river blindness mm exist, but Ugandans living in areas where transmission occurs receive two doses of a drug that treats mm the infections each year. Unfortunately, the drug called ivermectin only kills the larvae, so people infected with the parasite have to wait until the adults die or become infertile before they can consider themselves "cured." In the meantime, ivermectin serves to alleviate symptoms and reduces transmission. mm
Uganda s ivermectin distribution program has been running since 1997 thanks to drug donations from pharmaceutical company Merck, and international aid . So far, mass admi
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