LThe World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is a sounding board for the business world’s obsessions and a reflection of its diversity. In 2022, the Covid-19 pandemic overwhelmed all subjects – tests and masks were mandatory. This Monday, January 15th, there is not a single mask in sight and no certificate required. Even Ukraine is disappearing from conversations and the most beautiful house on the promenade, the city’s main artery, has been renamed “AI House”the “House of Artificial Intelligence”.
Ordinary flu deaths went under the radar and tons of brand new vaccines were thrown into the trash. Bill Gates, whose foundation devotes most of its resources to vaccinating poor countries, knows that he is no longer the prophet of a new age. The epidemic will return one day, but for now the planet is looking elsewhere.
However, this does not stop the co-founder of Microsoft from continuing to spend his immense fortune on the fight that he has been waging for more than twenty years at the helm of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. There’s even more to come since the world’s richest foundation announced on Monday that its 2024 budget will be increased further, to $8.6 billion (7.8 billion euros), an increase of 30% in the year Comparison to 2021 corresponds. It far exceeds the 6.7 billion World Health Organization, despite being sponsored by its 194 members.
Unchanged mantra
In Davos he is committed to the topic of the future of health in order to remind the bosses present that for the majority of the world’s citizens it is still a matter of life and death. And the smart businessman that remains Bill Gates can reap the rewards of his investment. On Friday, January 12, we learned that Cape Verde became the third country in Africa to eliminate malaria.
As for poliomyelitis, which crippled 350,000 children each year in 2000, it will only affect 12 in 2023. The billionaire’s mantra has not changed: With simple and inexpensive technologies, we achieve spectacular results, be it in the fight against diarrhea or postnatal hemorrhage in Africa or in vaccinating little girls against the papilloma virus.
This does not prevent Bill Gates from being hated by many angry people who trace all conspiracies back to him and undoubtedly prefer that the fortune be scattered in boat races, master paintings or dreams of the planet Mars. For others, it represents a form of good conscience and proves that accumulated wealth can sometimes help the weakest part of humanity.
