Bill Gates' most important chart

In an interview at a TED conference, Bill Gates shared a chart that has been an important motivating influence for the work of the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation.

The chart shows the dramatic decline in the number of children worldwide who die before age 5: "From 1960 to today, the number of children who die before the age of five has dropped from 20 million to around six million."

Indeed the increase in the average life expectancy at birth is largely due to this decline in infant mortality.

Gates attributes this remarkable advance to the efficacy of vaccines:

"This is a story largely down to vaccines," Bill said. "You want that to continue. The science is there. If we can invent the vaccines, get them out there, and get the delivery right, you can perform a miracle."

He is correct; vaccines are central to improving Global Health.

Figure 1. The dramatic decline in global childhood mortality thanks to modern medicine.