Gates pledges $750m to health fund

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has ridden to the rescue of a beleaguered health fund by pledging US$750m (€569.57m) to fight three of the world's killer diseases.

He says the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's donation to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria comes on top of $650m (€493.6m) it contributed to the fund over the past decade.