GENEVA, Switzerland, May 16 (UPI) -- Microsoft head Bill Gates says his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has raised its funding for improving global health to $450 million.
Gates told the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, the foundation would increase from $200 million to $450 million its contribution to the Grand Challenges in Global Health, Cnetnews.com reported.
Challenges in Global Health founded in 2003 by a Gates Foundation grant is jointly administered by the foundation and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health to focus on 14 major scientific challenges.
Gates also outlined actions for governments, researchers and the private sector to improve health in the developing world over the next 10 years.
"The world is failing billions of people. Rich governments are not fighting some of the world's most deadly diseases because rich countries don't have them," Gates said. "The private sector is not developing vaccines and medicines for these diseases, because developing countries can't buy them and many developing countries are not doing nearly enough to improve the health of their own people."
