Mark Zuckerberg donates millions to fight Ebola
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday morning that he and his wife Priscilla will donate $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation to help fight Ebola.
Zuckerberg's announcement, posted on Facebook, came on the heels of the World Health Organization's warning that there could be up to 10,000 new cases of Ebola a week in two months. According to the WHO, the death rate has also risen to 70%.
"The Ebola 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 1 million people or more over the next several months if not addressed," Zuckerberg added in his post.
Zuckerberg wrote that the $25-million grant is "the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome." He said Ebola needs to get under control quickly so it doesn't "become a long-term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio."
The Zuckerbergs are no stranger to giving. According to Philanthropy.com, the Zuckerbergs donated $992.2 million in 2013 in the form of 18 million shares of Facebook to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. According to Tech Crunch, the pair also donated $120 million to Bay Area schools earlier this year.
