The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided $100 million for the development of sexual gels to protect women from the AIDS virus.The grant to the International Partnership for Microbicides, a nonprofit group based in Silver Spring, Maryland, adds to a $28.5 million pledge from the U.K. Department for International Development, or DFID, according to a statement today. The donations to the partnership are the second by the Gates foundation and the third by the U.K. international development department.
AIDS affects 32 million people and is growing by 2.7 million new infections a year. In Africa, the region hit hardest by the disease, women are disproportionately infected. After years of trial failures, researchers at a scientific meeting in Montreal earlier this month reported positive results with the use a gel against the AIDS virus that have buoyed the field of prevention.
“We are pleased to join DFID in supporting research on an HIV prevention method that would put the power to prevent HIV in the hands of women, who are often unable to insist on abstinence or condoms,” said Tadataka Yamada, president of the Global Health Program of the Seattle-based Gates Foundation, in the statement.
The Gates foundation’s endowment declined to $29.7 billion on Dec. 31, from $38.7 billion a year earlier, said Melissa Milburn, a foundation spokeswoman. Gates has said the foundation will increase its 2009 grants for global health and other philanthropic projects despite the recession. Source Bloomberg.
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