One man has helped fund the development of five Covid vaccines, and backed 100 million doses for poorer countries. For demonstrating philanthropy can address problems politicians and business leaders shy away from, he deserves to be considered for one of the world’s greatest honours

Nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize close on Monday ahead of a lengthy selection process, which will culminate in the awarding of the prize in October. There is one person I would like to nominate. His name is Bill Gates. Gates has led philanthropists in making good the failures of both the private and the public sectors across the world during the present pandemic. He has invested in no fewer than five of the leading vaccines against Covid. But more than that, he has also – for more than a decade – pioneered a new approach to global inoculation which is bearing fruit in the current crisis.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft in 1975; it went on to become the world’s largest personal computer software company. Gates first became interested in immunisation in the late-1990s and since then the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent more than $16 billion on vaccinations, many of them through the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) which runs vaccination programmes in poor countries across the world.
Thanks to Bill and Melinda Gates it is estimated that eight million children were saved from an unnecessary death in the years up to 2020. Polio, which once paralysed a thousand children every day, has been virtually eradicated worldwide, thanks to Gates’ donations, which have helped vaccinate a staggering 2.5 billion children.