Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said polio could be eradicated throughout the world by 2018.
In a passionate speech, at the annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture, on the need to reduce child mortality, he set out his mission to rid the world of polio and praised the British media for its role in highlighting issues of global poverty.

He said that ‘the fight to eradicate polio is a proving ground, a test’ adding that ‘its outcome will reveal what human beings are capable of, and suggest how ambitious we can be about our future.’

As he pledged the commitment of his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to take on the acutely infectious virus, he acknowledged that polio now exists in only three countries, which included Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.