Gates raves about Indian healthcare, cheers philanthropy

Impressed with the progress in the healthcare sector in India, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said it is a remarkable achievement and that philanthropy in the country will continue to grow with entrepreneurs showing the way.

Impressed with the progress in the healthcare sector in India, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said it is a remarkable achievement and that philanthropy in the country will continue to grow with entrepreneurs showing the way.

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Gates made these remarks in a programme titled — India Questions — telecast on NDTV, in which he participated along with film actor Aamir Khan.

“I am sure that philanthropy in India will continue to grow. The only thing I do is as people are interested in philanthropy I share with them how much fun it could be. And talk to them about the fact that you should move from the place that you are, were, successful, usually business, you are going to feel uncomfortable, Gates said.

Speaking about the vaccination programme in India, Gates said: “Well India at this point has 1.7 million children under the age of five who die every year. And it is so tragic. But if you go back 10 years, it was over 3 million. So, it has come down a lot. You might say what’s going to happen going forward? Well we know that if we get the new vaccines out there, if we treat children in the first 30 days we can get it below a million.”

Aamir Khan stressed on a higher government spending on the health sector in India. “You know we spend 1.4 % of our GDP as I discovered during the Satyamev Jayate programme on health care, which I believe is very low. I am not an economist; my understanding is, the average is about 8%, you know, in other countries,” Khan said.