From The Guardian

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Wednesday it would spend $50m (£31m) – on top of $10m already committed – to support the emergency response to west Africa‘s Ebola outbreak – the group’s largest donation yet to a humanitarian effort.

“It became clear to us over the last 7 to 10 days that the pace and scope of the epidemic was increasing significantly,” Chris Elias, president of global development for the world’s largest charitable foundation, told Associated Press.

The Seattle-based foundation, said the money would go to the United Nations, World Health Organisation (WHO), US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and other international organisations involved in fighting transmission of the virus.

The money will be used to purchase supplies and to develop vaccines, therapies and better diagnostic tools. Elias said they had been talking to the foundation’s partners around the world to assess how best to use the money and could not say how it would be split between the emergency response and research and development.

“One of our key advantages is flexibility,” he said.

Global health and development dominate the work of the foundation, which has given away $30bn since 1997. The foundation formed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife reported an endowment worth $40m, as of March 2014.

The foundation was particularly influenced by the request on Friday by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary general, for $600m to fight the Ebola outbreak.

Read more at  The Guardian