Billionaire Paul Allen recently promised to donate at least $100 million to battle Ebola virus before it spreads globally.
In a report by ESPN, the Microsoft co-founder and owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers said, "We're faced with a huge challenge with Ebola. If you have one of these epidemics with the number of cases potentially doubling every 20 days, to get ahead of that and contain it, you have to send large numbers of health workers over to the affected areas, and get them in place and get communications going with communities. If the health workers get ill, they want to know they can get medevaced out of there. So we've been trying to do a few things, to build containers that can go on planes to help with the health workers evacuated."
He added, "I'm just trying to help show the way that we need to really increase what we're doing now, because we're currently chasing the expansion of the disease, and we've got to get ahead of expansion."
Bleacher Report wrote that Allen also started TackleEbola.com, a website that accepts individual donations to Ebola-related projects. The proceeds will reportedly be allocated to small-scale necessities such as patient beds and hand-washing stations and he is also working with the World Health Organization to improve logistics.
In a statement posted on his official website, Allen said, "The Ebola virus is unlike any health crisis we have ever experienced and needs a response unlike anything we have ever seen. To effectively contain this outbreak and prevent it from becoming a global epidemic, we must pool our efforts to raise the funds, coordinate the resources and develop the creative solutions needed to combat this problem."
According to the New York Times, part of Allen's money will be forwarded to the University of Massachusetts Medical School for medical workers, training, community outreach and education and lab equipment in Liberian hospitals. Before, the billionaire's foundation pledged $26.5 million.
Allen shared that he understood the dire needs of medical and health institutions in rural Africa during his visit in Kenya. "I was in a town of about 10,000 people, and a shipping container with a rusty microscope was their medical clinic."
"I think we've now seen that even something that's happening in West Africa, how it can arrive on our doorsteps very quickly. We're all interconnected in today's world," he added.