Zuckerberg and Chan gave $25 million to fight Ebola

Person: Mark Zuckerberg
Lived: b. 1984
Field: Technology
From: American

The story

The Ebola epidemic that began in Guinea in December 2013 became the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history. It spread to neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, with smaller outbreaks in Nigeria and Mali. On 8 August 2014 the World Health Organization declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and by September there were too few treatment beds in the hardest-hit countries; WHO officials warned that new cases were rising far faster than the capacity to care for them.

In October 2014, as cases were nearing their peak, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, a physician, gave $25 million to fight the epidemic. Announced in a Facebook post on 14 October, the gift went to the CDC Foundation, the independent nonprofit that supports the work of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it was intended to help bring the outbreak under control and save lives.

The size of the donation drew wide attention. Reports at the time noted that it was larger than the contributions then made by several entire countries, including Britain, Germany, Australia, China, France and Canada. Coverage by outlets including The Washington Post and Forbes highlighted it as one of the largest private responses to the crisis, alongside gifts from the Gates Foundation and Paul Allen.

It came a year after the couple had topped the Chronicle of Philanthropy's list of the most generous Americans, and it showed their willingness to respond quickly to a global health emergency far from home.

The commitment of substantial international resources helped turn the tide. The number of cases peaked in October 2014 and then gradually declined, as isolation and treatment were combined with safe burial practices, contact tracing and community engagement. The epidemic was finally declared over on 9 June 2016, after about 28,600 infections and more than 11,300 deaths.

The crisis also produced lasting advances, including the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, which a trial showed to be protective and which won regulatory approval in 2019.