Over the past 10 years, the Microsoft co-founder's charity has committed $4.5 billion to vaccines and has been instrumental in establishing the GAVI alliance, a public-private partnership that channels money for vaccines in poor countries.

By increasing immunization coverage in developing countries to 90 percent, it should be possible to prevent the deaths of 7.6 million children under five between 2010 and 2019, Gates told reporters at the World Economic Forum.

Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization described Gates' commitment to vaccines as "unprecedented" and called on governments around the world and the private sector to match it with "unprecedented action."

Vaccination rates have already climbed remarkably in recent years, with even a poor African country like Malawi now boasting coverage rates similar to those in many Western cities.

"Over the last 10 years, the success of both increased vaccine coverage and getting new vaccines out has been phenomenal," Gates said.

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