Bill Gates Has Saved 5.8 Million Lives

Sites include Microsoft.com . Published on January 27th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

Bill Gates is no stranger to achievement, having steered Microsoft to being the biggest software company in the world—all while making our computing lives easier. But he’s also quite giving, and through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he’s given billions to charity. The exact details of his philanthropic effort was compiled and released in an infographic.

According to the data, Gates and his wife have given over $28 billion top charity since 2007. This amount represents a whopping 48% of Gates’ net worth, and I could be wrong about this, but that has to be one of the highest proportionate rate of giving by any top earner in the world. This extraordinary generosity has helped people in Africa combat Malaria, increase rice yields and farther afield, helps with the eradication of Polio.

In all, through Gates’ efforts, over 5.8 million lives have been saved through a combination of vaccines and education drives geared at improving education and prevention of disease. The biggest gains were made in the fight against Hepatitis B and Measles with 3.4 million and 1.2 million lives been saved through the efforts of the Foundation. Perhaps one of the assuring things coming out of the study was the projection that by 2019, over 7.6 million lives will be saved—all these lives are of children under 5.