Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided financial assistance to the global effort to eradicate guinea worm. Their donation of $28.5 million in 2000, and more recently a $25 million matching grant has helped to ensure the global campaign remains funded through 2010. Since the start of the campaign in 1986, disease prevalence has dropped 99 percent and the number of cases has fallen from 3.5 million to less than 35,000.
In the fight against blinding trachoma, the Gates Foundation awarded $20 million over five years, which is the foundation’s largest donation to date to international blindness. Since 1997, the incidence of trachoma in Morocco has been cut by more than 90% among children under age 10. With funding secured, elimination efforts have been extended beyond Morocco to 11 other countries, representing one-quarter of the global burden of trachoma.