Impatient Optimists
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Topics / Diarrhea

While diarrhea-related deaths have decreased globally, diarrheal diseases remain the second-leading cause of childhood deaths. We aim to save and improve millions of lives through the development and delivery of low-cost interventions that prevent and treat diarrheal and enteric diseases.

Learn more below and visit the program page for more details about our work in this area.

Happy Anniversary to the Miracle of Vaccines

May 14, 2013 / Anant Shah

217 years ago today, May 14, Edward Jenner vaccinated a young, eight-year-old James Phipps against smallpox. That moment marked a new chapter for humanity, with the first person on the planet ever being immunized. I could not have imagined a more befitting way to honor and celebrate that anniversary than today’s announcement in Delhi on India’s progress toward the development of a rotavirus vaccine.

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Mind the GAPPD—A pivotal new resource offers global and local strategies to overcome leading child killers

April 12, 2013 / Steve Davis

Today’s launch of the GAPPD with its complementary resources is a reminder of the crucial value of collaboration and integrated efforts: Global and local officials must work together. Stakeholders such as civil society and the private sector must work together. Governments must engage health workers who must in turn work with their communities, so that diarrhea and pneumonia can be overcome… together.

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Tackling the Two Biggest Killers of Kids: Pneumonia and Diarrhea

April 12, 2013 / John Grove, Gretchen Meller

Most people are surprised by the fact that the two biggest killers of children between 1 month and five years are pneumonia and diarrhea. Today in London and Washington D.C. two important reports are being released that link these two illnesses with key policy recommendations on ending child mortality, recognizing that prevention and control of these disease cannot be adequately addressed without integrated programs.

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The Case for Childhood Rotavirus Vaccines

January 11, 2013 / Ciro de Quadros, Dr. Mathuram Santosham

We must commit to redoubling our efforts to ensure the evidence generated through surveillance, clinical trials and impact studies continues to inform how health programs develop so that, no matter where they are born, every child has access to health interventions that work, like rotavirus vaccines. Millions of children have already benefited from these vaccines—millions more continue to depend on us.

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Why Fishermen & Data are Key for Combating Cholera

January 02, 2013 / Helen Matzger

When cholera breaks out in a country it can sometimes take weeks for a case to be confirmed if there are no trained lab technicians or adequate supplies. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports the Africhol project of Agence de Médecine Préventive
that works with Ministries of Health in nine African countries to conduct cholera surveillance.

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  • "Our desire to bring every good thing to our children is a force for good throughout the world. It’s what propels societies forward." —Melinda Gates

  • The Global Fund has helped to deliver more than 190 million bed nets to protect families from malaria.

  • "The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively small amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families." —Bill Gates, 2012 Annual Letter

  • "When it come to global health, Bill and I are optimists—but we're impatient optimists. Tremendous progress is being made. But there is still so much we're impatient to see done." —Melinda French Gates

  • In Senegal, 80% of households now have a bed net, helping the number of malaria cases there drop 50% in a single year.

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