AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion... It's, what, a few months in Iraq.
Diarrhea, 90 percent of which is caused by food and water contaminated by excrement, kills a child every fifteen seconds. That's more than AIDS, malaria, or measles, combined. Human feces are an impressive weapon of mass destruction.
I travel the world visiting global health programs as an ambassador for the global health organization, PSI, and sometimes the disconnect I see is truly striking: people can get cold Coca Cola, but far too infrequently malaria drugs; most own mobile phones, but don't have equal access to pre-natal care.
There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. There's a reasonable shot that - because of his money - we will cure malaria.
I caught malaria, and the medicines caused a hallucination. I dreamt I won an Oscar for acting. I know it sounds stupid, but it was so real, and I just knew then it would happen.