By Sajid Hussain
ISLAMABAD: You don’t come any bigger. With a personal fortune of over $54b (till the last unofficial count), he is the world’s richest man. His over $36b philanthropic foundation is arguably world’s largest charity endowment as well. He was the man who literally transformed our world with his Microsoft. For a long time, he was the world’s most eligible bachelor and a reclusive blue blooded techno geek. But marriage and children changed all that. We don’t know what came first, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or fatherhood, but what is certain is that the man who once made billions while changing the world is now quietly giving them away in changing the world, yet again. And this time around, he is not doing it byte-by-byte but drop-by-drop as his foundation assumes a global lead role in developing and distributing mass vaccines aimed at preventing infectious diseases including polio.
In an exclusive early morning telephonic interview with The News from his Seattle residence, Bill Gates candidly shared his optimism and apprehensions regarding Pakistan’s fight against deadly diseases including polio and his rather simple solution to Pakistan’s lagging IT service industry.
Bill Gates said that his foundation had already pledged $97 million directly for polio eradication in Pakistan but explained that the actual amounts involved came out way higher as the foundation was also investing millions of dollars in overall vaccine development and “...therefore funding in Pakistan came in a variety of ways. We support this global alliance for vaccines and its going to help Pakistan through various children vaccines. We have given a lot of money for the global polio eradication campaign and a large part of it will land in Pakistan”. Expressing his immense concern over the missing out of 400,000 children in FATA alone every month, in the polio drop administering campaign, he said that this would only be possible with the help of the provincial governments in general but of “the armed forces” in particular. He said that Pakistan’s greatest challenge was its huge and moving population requiring massive immunisation. “You really need to find all the missing children because if you miss them out, you miss out on the whole as they can spread the disease”. He appeared convinced that the army was the critical success factor in such an endeavour. “In FATA areas in particular, the army needs to get the message out and promote the idea of vaccinators going out there”.
He said that the FATA problem had also been discussed in detail during his latest meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari during his recent American visit. He said that President Zardari assured him that he would work closely with prime minister, chief ministers and the army to improve the vaccination system, including polio, and that “there would be a six monthly prime minister-chief ministers review of the progress and activities”. Gates opined that this “commitment to have this review is a helpful thing”.
Bill Gates, however, appeared gravely concerned about the ongoing restructuring of the role of Pakistan’s Ministry of Health (caused by the transfer of health operations to the provinces under the 18th amendment) and apprehended that any faltering on this count could have serious negative ramifications with literally deadly consequences. He said that he had also shared his concern with president Zardari. “We discussed what the impact would be on vaccination future plans because of this reorganisation. Of all the money spent on health, the majority of diseases avoided came through vaccinations and of all health costs it is a very small percentage, less than 5%. I shared my concern that the vaccination system needed to improve uninterrupted. There is a need to have a continued focus on infectious diseases and a clear system of who is going to do what like buying etc. The reorganisation is a challenge just like the floods are a challenge,” adding, “I hope the ministry of health reorganisation does not become an impediment because it is still in progress. Right now, the vaccination coverage is not nearly as high as it needs to be.” Responding to a query, he further stated, “I know some great people in government who believe in this cause, and I want to do everything to help them get the visibility and resources and I am certainly very concerned that this reorganisation of the health ministry could not only cause disruption in polio campaign but also for the wider and very important vaccination for all the other diseases because if we got the vaccine cover up and running, we could prevent literally tens and thousands of deaths in Pakistan, and the benefits of doing that are literally incredible. I am doing everything I can to support people in Pakistan who have some really good plans if they get the resources and if there is no disruption.”
Gates brushed aside propaganda against other vaccines and the polio vaccine in particular about being ‘stealth medicines causing infertility in Muslim population. He pointed out that polio vaccine was not even being produced in United States and that Indonesia was the largest producer of the vaccine and that “every day billions of drops are being administered safely to children all over the world”. According to his assessment the biggest problem in deficient coverage of children had less to do with people’s attitudes and more with the lack of physical accessibility by administering teams, specially in Fata areas where the number of polio cases and other infectious diseases was the highest.
When asked to suggest ways to bring Pakistan more prominently on the world’s IT services related radar, he had a simple response to offer: Get your education system in order and some stability in the country. The world’s IT genius had this to say, “There is a lot of IT going on in Pakistan. The key to success is that the number and quality of IT college graduates goes up and Pakistan connects up with the world market. Internet has made the world a global planet. I don’t have specific data pertaining to Pakistan, but it’s all to do with the college education system. Stability is helpful as well”.
And now coming to the best part of the interview, which was saved for the last. Yesterday’s edition had carried this teaser of a question on the front page: “What does Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, think about when he goes to sleep?” Well, here’s the answer in Bill’s own words: “I used to think of software that was my main work and now, I have kids, and a foundation, so am often thinking of foundation’s projects and what’s gonna happen to polio, what about a new vaccine for tuberculosis or malaria. If I am not thinking about my kids, I’m thinking about those things that will make a big difference for everyone’s kids.” A billion dollar thought, wouldn’t you agree? Oh, one more thing. Gates is looking forward to coming to Pakistan in the near future to celebrate a “polio free Pakistan”. Will he able to and when, is the question that only time will answer.
