Mark Zuckerberg and wife pledge $25 million to fight Ebola

Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Mark Zuckerberg has pledged donating $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation to help fight the Ebola virus.

Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, announced Tuesday on his official Facebook page that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, will make the donation.

“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,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We believe our grant is the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome.”

“We are hopeful this will help save lives and get this outbreak under control,” Zuckerberg wrote.

A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, who died last week after contracting the virus, tested positive for Ebola, according to reports on Wednesday.