Eliza Barclay

How the four biggest disease-eradication efforts will make progress in 2009.

1 The Global Alliance for Vaccines and ImmunizationBetween 2000 and 2008, the Global Alliance, which is partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, averted a cumulative 3.4 million future deaths from yellow fever, diphtheria, and tetanus. It also protected 213 million children with new and underused vaccines; even more immunizations are expected in 2009.2 The Carter CenterIn 2009, the Carter Center, whose health programs focus on some of the world's most neglected and ignored diseases, will continue to treat guinea worm disease and river blindness in Nigeria and Niger. Its aims include stopping the transmission of the diseases altogether. By the end of 2007, guinea worm disease was endemic only in Sudan, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger.