Gates Channels Roosevelt in Push to Eradicate Polio

Bill Gates, chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp., called for urgent donations to stop the spread of polio and make it the first infectious disease eradicated since smallpox was wiped from the planet in 1979.

The billionaire, who contributes about $200 million a year to the cause through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is pressing rich nations to plug a $720 million funding gap to eliminate the crippling, potentially lethal virus by 2013. Cases worldwide were reduced to 946 last year from about 3,500 in 2000, after world health leaders called for a new $2.6 billion strategic plan to finish the task.