Solving the World's Problems One at a Time

Today’s prompt: “You are Bill Gates, and you are trying to solve the world’s problems one at a time. What’s the first thing you are going to tackle? Why?”

Honestly, I’m not sure I could improve on one of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s biggest current priorities, which is fighting diseases that primarily affect people in developing countries. They’ve been combating COVID-19, particularly in Africa and South Asia, but I think the work they’ve done on other, lower-profile diseases is more interesting. Many of these diseases are eradicable if we only chose to invest in doing so. Malaria, for instance. According to the Gates Foundation website, cases have dropped by more than 40% worldwide since the early 2000s, thanks to a combination of mosquito nets, insecticides, drugs, and testing. And the fact that it’s been eliminated in European countries and the U.S. suggests that it’s possible to eradicate it. But it’s going to take investment to do so, especially since we’re starting to see drug-resistant strains, and whether it’s just an out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing or good old systemic racism or both, few organizations are putting forth the investment. At least, a lot fewer than are investing in things like cancer research.

Besides malaria, there’s a whole class of diseases called Neglected Tropical Diseases. You might have heard of a handful of them – lymphatic filariasis, aka elephantiasis; leprosy; Human African Trypanosomiasis, aka sleeping sickness; hookworm; roundworm; and dracunculiasis, or Guinea worm disease. Let’s pause on the Guinea worm for a moment. You get the disease by drinking water that has teeny tiny crustaceans called copepods that eat guinea worm larvae. The copepods die in your digestive system, releasing the larvae. The larvae mate in your abdomen, and during the next year or thereabouts, the pregnant female worm grows to 2-3 feet in length, and, according to the CDC, is “as wide as a cooked spaghetti noodle.” And then. Then. They hatch their larvae. Through your skin. And they leave your body. Through your skin. Usually on your legs or feet. It’s incredibly painful and horrifying, and it can take weeks for the worm to fully emerge from your body, and if it breaks in the process, you can get an infection from any remaining worm pieces. Yikes. We would not stand for this in the developed world, and it is a crime that it still exists.

Other priorities include providing vaccines to developing nations, fighting HIV and polio, and assisting with agricultural development and financial services for those in need, but one other item worth highlighting is their water and sanitation projects. You might have heard of Bill Gates’ challenge to reinvent the toilet? Sanitation is still a massive problem in many parts of the world, and it results in needless deaths. More than 1,200 children age 5 and younger die per day due to waterborne diseases, according to the Gates Foundation site. One of those diseases is cholera. Cholera is pretty nasty. You get horrible diarrhea and become quickly dehydrated. It’s possible to die from it within hours. But again, it’s something that doesn’t get a lot of attention because cases of the disease are unheard of in the West. Well, almost unheard of. There’s you, after all.

[If you’re interested in helping out the Gates Foundation’s efforts, you can donate at https://www.gatesfoundation.org/philanthropypartners/donate.]