Bill Gates Foundation to pay off Nigeria’s $76 million polio debt

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will pay off Nigeria’s $76 million debt to Japan, over a 20-year period, beginning this year, CNBC reports.

The money was borrowed from the Asian country in 2014, to be used to tackle the polio disease.

Gates has also acknowledged the significant strides made towards eradicating the disease globally.

In a blog post, he stated: “The heroes who have made this progress possible are the millions of vaccinators who have gone door to door to immunize more than 2.5 billion children.

“Thanks to their work, 16 million people who would have been paralyzed are walking today.”

In 2017, the Gates Foundation spent $3 billion to help stop the spread of the disease which can cause paralysis after invading the nervous system.