Head of Gates Foundation’s global health leaving

SEATTLE — The head of the global health program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced he will leave the job in June.

Dr. Tachi Yamada has directed the foundation’s largest department for five years. Bill Gates said in a statement that Yamada has put the foundation’s global health work on a path to success. Gates gives Yamada credit for focusing the foundation’s efforts to bring vaccines and other medical help to the people who need it most.

During his time in Seattle, the foundation has tripled its financial commitment to fighting the diseases and health problems of the poor. From 1994 to the present, the foundation has made grants totaling more than $13.8 billion in the area of global health. That’s more than half the total grants made by the foundation during that time.

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