Malaria kills approximately half a million people every year, with 432,000 dead in 2017 according to the most recent data, and most of those deaths are children in the most vulnerable areas. Philip Welkhoff, Director of the Malaria Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke to Seattle 4 Rotarians about the progress that has been made in the fight against malaria, the reasons for hope in the road ahead, and that urgent action is needed.
 
Welkhoff, who was accompanied at lunch by his wife, Martina, was introduced to Rotary at a young age. Speaking of Rotary as a force for good, Welkhoff told the story of growing up on the north coast of Haiti, where the water systems that they drank from were installed by Rotarians. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Welkhoff was the Director of Research at the Institute for Disease Modeling, where he helped develop computer simulations of malaria, polio and other disease transmissions to assist health professionals and scientists in working toward the eradication of these diseases. Welkhoff has his PhD in Computational and Applied Mathematics from Princeton and joined the Gates Foundation in March 2018.