Gates Foundation and Childhood Vaccines: History and Funding

Last updated November 1, 2026

The Gates Foundation has committed more than US$30.6 billion to vaccines since 2000. Its work on immunization started in the late 1990s, when it still carried the names of Bill and Melinda Gates.

This page explains how that work began, what the foundation funds in immunization today, and how its money fits with the work of WHO, UNICEF and other partners. The figures come from the foundation’s own published pages.

How the Foundation’s Vaccine Work Began

The foundation traces its immunization work to a newspaper article. In 1997, after reading about the millions of children in lower-income countries who died each year of preventable diseases, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates decided to act.

Bill Gates sent the article to his father with a short note: “Dad, maybe we can do something about this.”

The Children’s Vaccine Program

Bill and Melinda Gates then announced a $100 million gift to set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Children’s Vaccine Program. Its goal was to cut the time it took for new vaccines to reach children in poor countries. At the launch, Bill Gates said that children in the developing world could wait up to 15 years for vaccines that children in richer countries received quickly.

The program focused on several newer vaccines:

  • Hib, pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines, which protect against respiratory and diarrheal disease.
  • Hepatitis B vaccine, which helps protect against liver cancer.

The announcement said that more than two million children died each year from diseases that these vaccines could prevent.

PATH, a nonprofit global health organization, ran the program from its headquarters in Seattle. The International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, Korea, hosted an office for Asia. The foundation’s grant database lists a grant to PATH, dated August 1998, “to support the Children’s Vaccine Program”, with a committed amount of $124,864,000.

The program’s plan included:

  • Studies of disease burden and of the cost effectiveness of vaccination.
  • Model vaccine introductions in selected countries, so health authorities could gain experience with a new vaccine.
  • Support for international agreement on how the new vaccines should be used.
  • Steps to keep vaccine supplies adequate at the lowest possible prices.

A Founding Funder of Global Vaccine Financing

In 2000, a new global vaccine alliance launched at the World Economic Forum. It brought together UN agencies, vaccine manufacturers, aid agencies and major foundations to vaccinate children in poor countries. The Gates Foundation pledged $750 million to support the alliance for its first five years, and it describes itself as a co-founder.

The foundation has stayed one of the alliance’s main funders:

  • By 2020, the foundation’s total commitments to the alliance had reached $6 billion, which the foundation then called its largest single investment.
  • In June 2025, the foundation announced a commitment of US$1.6 billion over the next five years.
  • Since 2000, the foundation has committed more than US$30.6 billion to vaccines, for their discovery, development and distribution. Of this, US$7.7 billion went to the alliance, the foundation’s largest grantee.

According to the foundation, the alliance has vaccinated more than 1.1 billion children across 78 low-income countries. This has prevented nearly 19 million deaths from diseases such as measles, pneumonia and diarrhea.

The alliance also receives money through new financing tools. One of these is the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), which sells bonds backed by long-term government pledges. IFFIm notes that sovereign donors and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation support the alliance through annual installments, while its bonds help raise money more quickly.

What the Foundation Funds in Immunization Today

The foundation’s Immunization team aims to reach children, adolescents and adults in lower-income countries with the vaccines they need. It works with country governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and many national and local partners.

The team funds work to improve the delivery of high-quality, affordable vaccines, including:

  • Pentavalent and hexavalent vaccines.
  • Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.
  • Inactivated polio vaccine.
  • Oral cholera vaccine.
  • Vaccines against rotavirus, human papillomavirus (HPV), measles and meningitis A.

The foundation says it pays particular attention to HPV vaccine introductions and measles campaigns.

Reaching Children Who Miss Out

Through its Routine Immunization Strengthening Program, the foundation works to raise routine immunization coverage in places with some of the lowest vaccine coverage. The program works in subnational areas within 10 countries that have low Penta3 vaccine coverage and a high risk of poliovirus transmission.

Vaccine Development

A separate team funds vaccine research and manufacturing. Its work includes:

  • New combination vaccines, so children need fewer injections.
  • Microneedle array patches, a less invasive way to give vaccines.
  • Clinical trials on whether one dose of HPV vaccine can replace a schedule of two or more doses.
  • New polio vaccines, including vaccines based on virus-like particles.
  • Funding for partners such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and PATH.

The foundation estimates that its vaccine investments over the past quarter century have contributed to saving 2 to 3 million lives each year. It also estimates that they have helped prevent 20 million cases of paralytic polio.

Polio Eradication

The foundation calls polio eradication a top priority. It joined the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 2007. The partners of GPEI include WHO, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF.

When the GPEI was launched in 1988, polio was present in more than 125 countries and paralyzed about 1,000 children per day. Since then, the incidence of polio has fallen by 99%. Today, wild polio is found only in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The foundation funded research that led to nOPV2, a next-generation oral polio vaccine used to stop outbreaks of type 2 variant poliovirus. The rollout began in 2021 under WHO Emergency Use Listing, and the vaccine earned full licensure and WHO prequalification in 2023. Health workers have delivered nearly 2 billion doses. For background on earlier work, see polio eradication.

Why the Work Still Matters

The foundation’s own figures show both the gains and the gaps:

  • Vaccines save 3.5 to 5 million lives each year.
  • Since WHO launched the Expanded Programme on Immunization in 1974, vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives, most of them children. Measles vaccination alone accounts for nearly 94 million of those lives.
  • In 2023, 14.5 million children did not receive a single vaccine, compared with 13.9 million the year before.
  • Measles cases rose by 20% in 2023 compared with 2022, and 61 countries had large or disruptive measles outbreaks.
  • One in five children still lack access to essential vaccines.

Low coverage is the cause the foundation gives for these measles outbreaks. It also says that greater vaccine coverage in lower-income countries by 2030 could keep millions of people from falling into poverty because of health costs. For more on this, read about the economics of vaccination.

The Foundation’s Size and Timeline

The foundation’s charitable support in 2025 totaled more than US$8.4 billion, across more than four dozen program areas. Over its first 25 years, it invested more than US$102.3 billion in global health and development, U.S. education and economic mobility.

In 2025, Bill Gates announced that the foundation will spend US$200 billion over the next 20 years and close at the end of 2045.

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