Gates Foundation on Emerging Markets

VACCINATION PROGRAM

Endorsing vaccines as the world’s most cost-effective public health measure, Bill and Melinda Gates said Friday that their foundation would more than double its spending on them over the next decade, to at least $10 billion.

The change could save the lives of as many as eight million children by 2020, Mr. Gates calculated. He said he hoped his gift would inspire other charities and donor nations to do the same.

The commitment is the largest ever made by a foundation, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which noted that $10 billion is slightly more than the total worth of the Ford Foundation, the country’s second largest. The Gates Foundation, created in 1999 with the fortune that Mr. Gates made from Microsoft, has about $34 billion in assets; it has already spent $4.5 billion on vaccines.

“Vaccines are a real success story,” Mr. Gates said in an interview before the announcement, which he made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The cost is tiny, and yet it saves more lives than any other component of a health care system.”