American billionaire Paul Allen pledged to donate $100 million to help control the Ebola outbreak, which has taken lives of thousands of people worldwide.
Allen said in a recent statement that private organizations should team up to fight the deadly virus that reportedly affected more than 10,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone based on an update from the World Health Organization.
"The Ebola virus is unlike any health crisis we have ever experienced and needs a response unlike anything we have ever seen," Allen said via Forbes. "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. I am committed to doing my part in tackling this crisis."
While the United States have been making moves to prevent the disease from entering American soil, three cases and one death were recorded this month, while reports also indicated that another doctor, who previously worked in West Africa, tested positive for deadly virus at a hospital in New York.
Allen admitted that he expected the disease to spread in several countries quickly, saying that controlling the disease is really a challenge as proven by the recent cases in the United States.
"We're up against an extremely tough opponent here," Allen said. "The exponential nature of the growth of this disease is really a challenge - we've already seen in the U.S. where one case quickly became two."
The New York Times reported that a part of Allen's donation will be given to the University of Massachusetts Medical School for training of medical workers and providing equipments to countries affected by the disease, saying that he witnessed how poor the resources are in some countries.
"I got a taste when I was in Kenya a while ago of what medical care was in rural Africa," Allen said. "I was in a town of about 10,000 people, and a shipping container with a rusty microscope was their medical clinic."
"This is really more about trying to attack every element of this problem. This disease expands at an exponential rate, so there is a need for exponentially more health care workers," Allen added.
