Taiwan Provides $1 Million Donation to CDC Foundation for Ebola Response Effort
The unprecedented Ebola epidemic in West Africa has now taken the lives of more than 6,000 people and infected more than 17,000 people in the region. To support efforts to stem the epidemic, the CDC Foundation today announced a $1 million donation from Taiwan to provide flexible funding to help meet the most urgent, on-the-ground needs in West Africa. This donation will be used for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Ebola response effort in the most severely affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“CDC’s response to Ebola is the largest international outbreak response in CDC’s history,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “Together, West Africa and the international community are making progress in reversing this epidemic, and this contribution from Taiwan will help us meet important needs on the ground in the region.”
This donation was made to the CDC Foundation’s Global Disaster Response Fund, which is providing essential materials and assistance to advance CDC’s response to the Ebola epidemic. To date, the CDC Foundation and its donors have provided materials ranging from computers, tablets and printers for use in the field by CDC and in-country staff to personal protective equipment and thermal scanning thermometers for use by airport screeners in West Africa. And funding has been provided for health worker training, trucks and motorcycles, medical supplies and public health communications in the region. Importantly, funding is being deployed to establish sustainable emergency operations centers in the most affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“We are grateful to Taiwan for this generous donation that will help to extend the life-saving work taking place in West Africa,” said Charles Stokes, president and CEO of the CDC Foundation. “Funding such as Taiwan’s is vital in helping meet critical, in-the-moment needs that could otherwise go unmet.”
“Taiwan has been committed to the role of a provider of international humanitarian aid, so it is important for us to support the ongoing international efforts in the fight against Ebola,” said Representative Lyushun Shen of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. “This donation is one of several contributions that Taiwan has pledged in the fight against Ebola. In addition, Taiwan has provided 100,000 units of personal protective equipment to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.” Previously, Taiwan worked closely with the United States in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan and in Haiti after a major earthquake in 2010 to provide humanitarian relief to those in need.
The CDC Foundation’s board of directors acknowledged the tremendous needs presented by the Ebola epidemic and committed to absorbing 100 percent of the Foundation’s administrative costs associated with the Global Disaster Response Fund so that every penny donated by others is used to support CDC’s emergency mandate.