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Gates gives $26m to save babies
Bill Gates gave $5bn away in June |
The embattled Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has donated $26m to the United Nations Children's Fund to help it combat deadly maternal and neo-natal tetanus in developing countries.
The grant will be used to immunise mothers against the disease which claimed nearly 250,000 lives last year.
The disease, which strikes when women give birth in unsanitary conditions, killed only one new born child in the United States in 1998.
But the UN Children's Fund, Unicef says that in the developing world, it claimed the lives of 215,000 new-borns and 30,000 mothers.
The disease can be prevented by immunising women of child-bearing age with tetanus vaccine which costs only $1 per mother.
Historic fight
Working together with the UN World Health Organisation and a number of medical firms, Unicef plans to vaccinate 100 million women over the next six years.
The programme will be carried out in nearly 60 countries, including India, China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Ghana.
Bill Gates provided his $26m grant via his Seattle based charitable foundation.
Mr Gates attracted adverse publicity earlier this month when a US judge concluded that Microsoft had used its monopoly position in the computer industry to bully competitors and stifle innovation.
But his latest charitable donation won him plaudits from Unicef and its partners who paid tribute to Mr Gates for his assistance in what they termed the historic fight against tetanus in the developing world.
Previous donations
The Gates foundation has already given $100m to help developing countries provide vaccines against childhood diseases.
In February, Mr Gates announced a $3.3bn donation for education and health projects worldwide and topped it up with another $5bn in June.
He has also given $24m to the International Aids Vaccine Initiative this year to help with the search for a preventative drug against the disease.
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04 Jun 99 | Your Money |
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