A global push to tackle neglected diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis is gathering steam, largely because of an influx of charity money to subsidize the work of the drug companies.
A new report cites a wealth of donations and leadership from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, the Wellcome Trust and the Rockefeller Foundation, all designed to create a new landscape for work on diseases afflicting poor countries.
Governments, including that of the United States, have started to help with modest donations.
But more than half the nearly $255 million contributed as of April 2005, the most recent available figure, had come from the Gates Foundation.
The U.S. government has contributed $16 million, dwarfed by the Gates Foundation's $159 million, the report said.
"Who's actually funding this is essentially Bill Gates," Mary Moran, principal author of the new report, said as she presented some of its findings at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "Now we need the public to step in and take it to the next stage."
[Excerpt of an article by Justin Gillis, Washington Post]
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