In an attempt to raise awareness on smoking-related problems and to encourage smoking cessation, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined forces announcing a $500 million investment to reduce tobacco use in developing countries like India and Indonesia where smoking is prevalent.

More than 5 million people are killed by tobacco annually according to the World Health Organization’s statistics. Moreover, the health organization estimates that tobacco will kill up to a billion people in the 21st century, 10 times as many as it killed in the 20th.

On Wednesday, Mayor Bloomberg, a former a smoker and now an important supporter of tobacco eradication, said that his foundation plans to donate $250 million over four years on top of a $125 million gift he donated two years ago for trying to stop so many people for smoking, thus reducing the number of deaths resulted from tobacco-related diseases. Over the recent years, Mayor Bloomberg has donated hundreds of millions. He is also rumored to have anonymously donated millions annually to the Carnegie Corporation, which in turn distributed the money to hundreds of New York City organizations.

In addition to Mayor Bloomberg’s donation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is donating $125 million over five years for the same purpose. This is not the first time Gates Foundation is donating money for noble purposes. Since 1999, it has spent more than $2 billion on AIDS programs and about $1.2 billion on malaria.

“The reality is that all the money in the world will never eradicate tobacco use and that this problem is too big for any one person or organization to solve. It’s going to take a sustained commitment by government, community organizations and the entire global health community, including those who fund it,” Mayor Bloomberg said at the Times Center in New York, according to the New York Times.

The $500 million campaign, dubbed Mpower, coordinates efforts by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the World Health Organization, the World Lung Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the foundation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The campaign will plead for prohibiting smoking in public places, raising tobacco taxes and promoting ads against smoking by children. Moreover, there will be antismoking advertising campaigns and people will be offered patches or other things to help them quit.

“Together we can make a clear, measurable difference – not just for ourselves and our generation but for the generations that come after us,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

These efforts will be headed on five low- and middle-income countries where most of the world’s smokers live: China, Bangladesh, Russia, Indonesia, and India. China alone has about 350 million smokers, a third of the world’s total. Nearly 1 million people die from tobacco related disease there annually, according to the World Health Organization. China is also a major tobacco producer not only a consumer. Efforts to prevent smoking and to minimize the production of tobacco will be difficult there, as the government owns cigarettes manufacturing companies.

“Smoking is an epidemic that can be stopped, and we want more people to get involved,” Gates said as quoted by Reuters.

He continued by reminding that cigarettes bans in US bars and restaurants have helped US smoking rates decrease. The US example was followed by other countries as well. Ireland, France, Italy and Turkey number among these countries.