Saving the world is on Sue Desmond Hellman’s to do list

FILE PHOTO: Susan Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, speaks at the 2019 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., April 29, 2019. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

By Chris Taylor

NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you had $50 billion to try to solve the world’s worst problems, what exactly would you do?

That is the daunting challenge that faces Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann when she walks into her office every morning as president of the Gates Foundation – the largest private foundation in the United States, set up by Bill and Melinda Gates.

For the latest in Reuters’ Life Lessons series, Desmond-Hellmann talked with us about the winding path that took her from the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, through years in Uganda, to the top of the philanthropic world.

Q: When you were a kid growing up in Reno, Nevada, what money lessons did you learn from your parents?

A: Two things made huge impacts on me: One was that my mom and dad were both children of the Depression, and the first in their families to go to college, so they really knew the value of education. I was one of seven kids, and every night at dinner we talked about nothing but homework and school and books.

The other thing was the importance of values and faith. All the way through 12th grade, my life totally revolved around church and Catholic school.

Q: What was it like to begin your medical career in San Francisco in the 1980s?

A: I started at UCSF as an intern in 1982, and if you look at the history books, the first descriptions of HIV started appearing at that time. So I was literally becoming a doctor in the epicenter of the epidemic. In fact, my specialty was Kaposi’s sarcoma, which you see in a lot of AIDS patients.

Q: After that, you treated AIDS patients in Uganda. What lessons did you take away from that experience?

A: We were approached by the Rockefeller Foundation to study heterosexual HIV transmission in Africa, so my husband Nick and I sold our Honda Civics, sublet our apartment, and hopped on a plane.

We were extremely isolated. When we came back from Uganda, we never complained about anything ever again.

Q: How long did you and your husband grapple with student loans?

A: We were paying those off for the longest time. I still remember the coupons you had to rip off, and send in with your check. We had a lot of debt we had to get rid of, so we were very conservative with our money. It wasn’t until around 2000 where we were financially secure enough to start giving some away to charity.

Q: You have billions to work with, how do you decide where to direct that money?

A: We are in the equity business, the idea that all lives have equal value. So we believe in education as something that drives equity and that no matter your zip code or background or family wealth, you can get a good public education.

We complement that work with a focus on global health, which began after Bill and Melinda took a trip to Africa and saw children dying of diseases that could have been prevented with vaccines. The big drug companies tend to invest in health conditions that affect the rich world, so we focus on what affects the poor: things like TB, malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia.

Q: What is the best life advice you got from Bill and Melinda Gates?

A: The thing I admire about Bill and Melinda is that they are pretty even-keeled about setbacks. Most people tend to beat themselves up when they hit an obstacle, but they don’t get frustrated. They understand that most people overestimate what they accomplish in one year, but underestimate what they can accomplish in 10 years.

Q: What life lessons do you try to pass on to the next generation?

A: I have lots of nieces and nephews, and a couple of things have been North Stars for me. One is being generous: That can be through money, but it can also be through volunteering, or just how you interact and treat people.

The next thing is that when you have a setback, see it as an opportunity. I have had times in my life where I tried to go left, and the door was closed. So turn right and open another door, because there may be something great behind it. Setbacks are only temporary, so keep moving and don’t get stuck.

(Editing by Beth Pinsker and Jonathan Oatis)

Public mistrust after Congo election raises Ebola epidemic anxiety

FILE PHOTO: A healthcare worker sprays a room during a funeral of a person who is suspected of dying of Ebola in Beni, North Kivu Province of Democratic Republic of Congo, December 9, 2018. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

By By, Kate, Kelland,, Health and and

LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Global health teams battling the world’s second largest Ebola epidemic in Democratic Republic of Congo fear an election dispute may deepen public mistrust and allow the epidemic to run out of control.

Fostering confidence in health authorities is essential when fighting a disease that can spread furiously through communities where local services are scant and patients are often scared to come forward to government or international response teams.

“When you have political instability, public health always suffers,” said Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease expert who recently visited east Congo with a World Health Organization leadership team.

Without public trust, he said, the Congo epidemic could kill many hundreds more people.

The Dec. 30 election was supposed to mark Congo’s first uncontested democratic transfer of power after 18 years of chaotic rule by President Joseph Kabila.

But accusations of fraud and calls for a recount are threatening more volatility and violence after opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was declared the winner.

“The worst case scenario is that political instability remains, mistrust grows … and then there’s nothing to stop the epidemic getting embedded into a big urban center and taking off as it did in West Africa,” said Farrar.

“GAINS COULD BE LOST”

Already, 385 people have been killed in the outbreak of Ebola in east Congo that began six months ago and has infected at least 630 people, according to WHO data. The death rate in this epidemic – by far the biggest Congo has seen, and the world’s second largest in history – is more than 60 percent.

Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids. It causes hemorrhagic fever with severe vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding. The outbreak is concentrated in North Kivu and Ituri provinces.

There are some signs case numbers in the North Kivu city of Beni may be leveling off, but WHO experts are cautious.

They say the apparent lull might be due to people getting ill but failing to seek proper diagnosis and treatment.

The West Africa Ebola outbreak Farrar referred to lasted for two years from 2014. It infected 28,000 and killed more than 11,300 people in an epidemic that devastated Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea and spread in sporadic cases to several other African countries as well as the United States and Europe.

The WHO says the risk of the disease spreading remains “very high” at national and regional levels and is working urgently with Congo and its neighbors – Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan – to do everything to avoid that happening again.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said 25 million people have already been screened for Ebola at border checks with Congo’s neighbors. Vaccination campaigns have also begun for health workers in Uganda and South Sudan.

Jasarevic also said multiple threats to response teams’ ability to find, treat and prevent cases of Ebola infection make the Congo situation particularly worrisome: “Gains could be lost if we suffer a period of prolonged insecurity,” he said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)