Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg walks with his wife Priscilla Chan at the annual Allen and Co. conference at the Sun Valley Resort, Idaho, July 11, 2013. (Reuters/Rick Wilking)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, who is a pediatrician, have donated $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation to aid in combating the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
In a Facebook post announcing the move, Zuckerberg said the current crisis is at a "critical turning point":
We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn't spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio.
We believe our grant is the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome.
Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work. These people are on the ground setting up care centers, training local staff, identifying Ebola cases and much more.
The CDC Foundation is an entity established by Congress to help raise private funds to supplement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's response to public health threats. Zuckerberg and Chan's contributions were made through their fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and was made to the CDC Foundation's Global Disaster Response Fund.
The Ebola Survival Fund released this ad Wednesday featuring Tony Blair, Whoopi Goldberg and other famous faces to drum up support for a coalition of community-based organizations working to fight the deadly virus in Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Ebola Survival Fund)
The money will be used to aid in battling the epidemic in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone by fulfilling, among other things, equipment, training, transportation, burial support, and contact tracing needs on the ground.
“The most important step we can take is to stop Ebola at its source. The sooner the world comes together to help West Africa, the safer we all will be,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden in a statement. “This significant contribution from Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan will help us rapidly advance the fight against Ebola."
Related:
Sex in a time of Ebola
How the world failed to stop Ebola
Here's what the Ebola epidemic (still) looks like in Africa
Abby Phillip is a general assignment national reporter for the Washington Post. She can be reached at
abby.phillip@washpost.com. On Twitter:
@abbydphillip
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