Billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates have joined forces to work on finding a treatment for the coronavirus as the United States becomes the center of the outbreak.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have donated $25 million through their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is organizing the “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.” The Gates Foundation donated $50 million last month, while Wellcome and Mastercard brought its total funding up to $125 million to research antiviral drugs that could fight the disease.
“Viruses like COVID-19 spread rapidly, but the development of vaccines and treatments to stop them moves slowly,” said Mark Suzman, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a press release. “If we want to make the world safe from outbreaks like COVID-19, particularly for those most vulnerable, then we need to find a way to make research and development move faster. That requires governments, private enterprise, and philanthropic organizations to act quickly to fund R&D.”
“Part of the idea is that often a drug can be helpful against multiple diseases, so you can basically take all of those drugs that have already been screened as safe and test them to see if they might also have a positive impact for either preventing the coronavirus or reducing the symptoms and making it less damaging.” Zuckerberg said on “CBS This Morning” on Friday.
“I’m really proud to share that CZI’s going to be joining Gates and others to put together something they’re calling the therapeutics accelerator to fight coronavirus. They’re going to fund a group to screen all of the drugs that we know have potential effects against coronavirus. Figuring out drugs is always expensive, but philanthropy can be a role in kickstarting this,” added Chan.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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