Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and
wife Dr Priscilla Chan are donating $25 million to help US efforts to contain
the deadly Ebola epidemic.
“The Ebola epidemic is at a critical turning
point and has infected 8400 people so far, but it is spreading very quickly and
projections suggest it could infect one million people or more over the next
several months if not addressed,” Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page.
He said he and his paediatrician wife
will donate the funds to the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) Foundation.
The money will be used by the CDC’s
Ebola response effort in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and elsewhere in the
world where Ebola is a threat, the foundation said.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
last month pledged $US50 million to help boost the fight against the Ebola
outbreak, providing the funds to UN agencies and international organisations
involved in the outbreak. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen also donated $US9
million last month.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation
said West Africa could see up to 10,000 new Ebola cases a week within two
months and confirmed that the death rate in the current outbreak is now 70 per
cent.
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