The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation yesterday announced that it will commit $50 million "to support the scale up of emergency efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and interrupt transmission of the virus".
A press statement says the Foundation owned by the Microsoft boss will immediately release the funds to United Nations agencies and international organisations involved in the Ebola fight "to enable them and national governments to purchase badly needed supplies and scale up emergency operations in affected countries".
The Foundation has also committed to working with public and private sector partners "to accelerate the development of therapies, vaccines, and diagnostics that could be effective in treating patients and preventing further transmission of the disease".
The foundation's CEO, Sue Desmond-Hellmann said they were working "urgently with our partners to identify the most effective ways to help them save lives now and stop transmission of this deadly disease”.
He said they were also accelerating the development of treatments, vaccines and diagnostics that can help end this epidemic and prevent future outbreaks.
They had earlier given $10 million towards the Ebola fight, including $5 million to WHO and $5 million to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF "to support efforts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to purchase essential medical supplies, coordinate response activities, and provide at-risk communities with life-saving health information".
The statement says the foundation is immediately committing an additional $2 million to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention "to support incident management, treatment, and health care system strengthening".
"As additional grants are made, the foundation will provide further details on its funding commitments to on-the-ground operations and to research and development for Ebola drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics".
(C) Politico, 11/09/14
