Gates Foundation pledges $8bn to fight Ebola epidemic

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation yesterday pledged $50 million (about N8 billion)  to support emergency efforts to contain West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, which has already killed almost 2,300 people in the worst outbreak of the virus in history. The U.S.-based philanthropic foundation said it would release funds immediately to U.N. agencies and international organisations to help them buy supplies and scale up the emergency response in affected countries. It will also work with public and private sector partners to speed up to development of drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics that could be effective in treating Ebola patients and preventing further spread of the haemorrhagic fever-causing virus. “We are working urgently with our partners to identify the most effective ways to help them save lives now and stop transmission of this deadly disease,” Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the Foundation’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. Latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show the Ebola outbreak, which began in March, has infected almost 4,300 people so far, killing more than half of them. The deadly viral infection is raging in three countries – Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone – and has also spread into neighbouring Nigeria and Senegal. The WHO said on Tuesday the Ebola death toll jumped by almost 200 in a single day to at least 2,296 and is already likely to be higher than that. It has previously warned that the epidemic is growing “exponentially” and there could be up to 20,000 cases in West Africa before it is brought to a halt. The Gates Foundation, set up by the billionaire founder of Microsoft Bill Gates to fight disease and poverty in poor countries, has already committed more than $10 million to fight the Ebola outbreak, including $5 million to the WHO for emergency operations and research and development assessments and $5 million to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to support efforts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. In its statement, the Foundation said it would also give an extra $2 million immediately to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to support incident management, treatment, and health care system strengthening. (Reuters)