Washington - The Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation said Wednesday it was pledging $50 million to help
boost the fight against the Ebola outbreak as overwhelmed medical teams in west
Africa struggle to contain the disease.
The foundation said in a
statement it would immediately release funds to UN agencies and international
organizations involved in the outbreak in order to “scale
up” emergency efforts in affected countries.
The foundation also vowed to
work with the public and private sector to help speed up the development of
therapies and vaccines to tackle the deadly 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,” said Sue Desmond-Hellmann, chief executive of the
Gates Foundation.
“We also want to accelerate the development of
treatments, vaccines and diagnostics that can help end this epidemic and
prevent future outbreaks.”
Overwhelmed west African
nations have called states of emergency across the region as they attempt to
staunch the scale of the outbreak.
The World Health Organization
(WHO) has predicted an “exponential increase”
in infections across west Africa, and warned that Liberia alone will face
thousands of new cases in the coming weeks.
More than 2,200 people have
died in the outbreak from more than 4,200 infections in Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Guinea and Nigeria.
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