Gates Foundation partners with soccer team for polio eradication, vaccine awareness campaign

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday announced a three-year partnership with the soccer team FC Barcelona aimed at promoting polio eradication and highlighting the importance of vaccines, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's "Seattle Big Blog" reports (Sunde, 7/28).

"Ninety-nine percent of the cases [of polio] have been eliminated," Bill Gates said at an event in Washington, MLSsoccer.com reports. "We still have this one percent left and it's a serious problem. The last one percent is the most difficult of all and that's why I'm spending time on this," he added (Borg, 7/29). "The partnership allows the Gates Foundation to use images and video of the FC Barcelona team to support awareness efforts. The two parties will use their own financial resources to fund marketing and promotional activities and will not be compensated for their partnership efforts," according to a Gates Foundation press release (7/28).