TheCable

Mark Zuckerberg , the founder of Facebook, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have donated N4bn to fight the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

Making the announcement on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg said they wanted to stop the epidemic before it gets out of control to become a bigger, and more expensive, global issue to fight, as it has happened with the HIV/AIDS.

“Priscilla and I are donating $25m to the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) foundation to help fight Ebola. The epidemic is at a critical turning point. It has infected 8,400 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,” he wrote.

“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 centres, training local staff, identifying Ebola cases and much more. We are hopeful this will help save lives and get this outbreak under control.”