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Philanthropist Bill Gates has warned that a child born in northern Nigeria faces a 15 percent risk of dying before the age of five, urging governments to reverse recent global health funding cuts.
Speaking at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York on Monday, Gates said millions of children are at risk of preventable deaths if aid continues to decline.
He stressed that progress made in cutting child mortality in half since 2000, saving about five million lives annually, could be reversed.
The Gates Foundation announced a $912 million contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
This follows a sharp drop in development assistance, which the U.S.-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation reported had fallen by 21 percent between 2024 and 2025, reaching its lowest level in 15 years.
Gates said philanthropy alone cannot replace government support. “I am not capable of making up what the government cuts, and I don’t want to create an illusion of that,” he noted.
The Microsoft co-founder, who has pledged to donate nearly his entire $200 billion fortune by 2045, said sustained funding for organisations such as the Global Fund and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, alongside innovations like long-acting HIV prevention drugs, could still save millions of lives.
While most governments have reduced their health funding, Spain increased its contributions this year by 12 percent to the Global Fund and 30 percent to Gavi.
Child born in North has 15 per cent chance of dying before age five – Bill Gates warns
