Mark Zuckerberg and Wife Donate $25M to Fight Ebola

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, who is a pediatrician, are donating $25 million to help fight Ebola.

Zuckerberg announced the donation to the CDC Foundation on his Facebook page, naturally. In the post, Zuckerberg said the Ebola epidemic was at a “critical turning point.”

“It has infected 8,400 people so far, but it is spreading very quickly and projections suggest it could infect 1 million people or more over the next several months if not addressed,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn't spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio.”

He said speed is critical in fighting the epidemic, which is the largest Ebola outbreak in history, according to the CDC.

“We believe our grant is the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome. Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work. These people are on the ground setting up care centers, training local staff, identifying Ebola cases and much more,” he wrote.

According to Forbes, Zuckerberg is worth $34 billion. Zuckerberg and Chan were no. 1 this year on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Philanthropy 50 list, having donated over $990 million to educational charities such as Startup: Education and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.