The fight against the Ebola outbreak received some major boost on Wednesday after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to donate $50 million to help struggling West Africa contain the disease, Agence France-Presse reported. The outbreak has killed 206 people in the West African country, with 90 percent of infected patients dying since there was no cure or vaccine until recently.
The funds would immediately be released to UN agencies and international organization in order to "scale up" emergency efforts in countries affected by the outbreak, the foundation said in a statement.
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."
In an attempt to staunch the scale of the outbreak, overwhelmed west African nations have called states of emergency across the region, with the World Health Organization (WHO) predicting an "exponential increase" in infections across the country.
It has further warned that Liberia alone will face thousands of new cases in the coming weeks, according to AFP.
The Ebola outbreak started in Guinea's remote southeast in February and has since spread across the region. Since it was first recorded in 1976 in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 2,200 people have died in the outbreak from more than 4,200 infections in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, Reuters reported.
Symptoms of the highly infectious disease are diarrhea, vomiting and internal and external bleeding.
