The Atlantic: Bill Gates’s Quest to Determine Why Children Are Dying
“…In order to better understand the drivers of mortality for all children, on Wednesday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it’s investing $75 million in a series of surveillance sites that will gather data ‘about how, where, and why children are getting sick and dying,’ according to the release. This Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Network, or CHAMPS, will be spread initially throughout six locations in Africa and South Asia. It will rely on field workers to take biopsies of children who have perished and on beefed-up laboratories that will perform medical testing…” (Khazan, 5/6).

Financial Times: Gates Foundation vows $75m to probe emerging world child deaths
“…This would help the global health officials match resources with needs in the long-term battle against childhood mortality while also improving monitoring and the ability to respond to emergencies such as the Ebola epidemic. ‘The world needs better, more timely public health data,’ said Mr. Gates, pointing to the absence of laboratories in West Africa as one of the reasons why the international response to Ebola was so slow…” (Ward, 5/7).

New York Times: Gates Foundation Plans Teams to Determine Causes of Child Mortality
“…Although the effort will be modest at first — a $75 million donation to start small teams in six countries — the foundation hopes to expand to as many as 25 Asian and African countries, with dozens of members on each team. The network will include the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University’s Global Health Institute…” (McNeil, 5/6).