The Bill and Melinda Gates Foun­da­tion announced yes­ter­day that they will dou­ble their com­mit­ment vac­cines. The Foun­da­tion will put $10 bil­lion dol­lars in the next decade to the devel­op­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion of vac­cines to under-developed coun­tries. The Foun­da­tion pre­vi­ously allo­cated $4.5 bil­lion dol­lars for vac­cines devel­op­ment for such dis­eases as tuber­cu­lo­sis, diar­rhea, and others.

From this Asso­ci­ated Press arti­cle that we found at NPR, we read more about reac­tion to the Gates Foun­da­tion statement.

Gates said the com­mit­ment more than dou­bles the $4.5 bil­lion the foun­da­tion has given to vac­cine research over the years.

The foun­da­tion said up to 7.6 mil­lion chil­dren under 5 could be saved through 2019 as a result of the dona­tion. It also esti­mates that an addi­tional 1.1 mil­lion kids would be saved if a malaria vac­cine can be intro­duced by 2014. A tuber­cu­lo­sis vac­cine would pre­vent even more deaths.

“Vac­cines are a mir­a­cle,” said Melinda Gates. “With just a few doses, they can pre­vent deadly dis­eases for a lifetime.”

Mar­garet Chan, head of the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, called the Gates con­tri­bu­tion unprece­dented and urged gov­ern­ments and pri­vate donors to add to the initiative.

“An addi­tional two mil­lion deaths in chil­dren under five years could be pre­vented by 2015 through wide­spread use of new vac­cines and a 10 per­cent increase in global vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age,” said Chan.

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