Jack Ma, the wealthiest individual in China, has made a generous donation of 100 million yuan (£11 million) to support efforts in combatting the coronavirus outbreak, which has taken a toll on much of China, resulting in nearly 170 deaths and over 7700 confirmed cases of infection.
Jack Ma, with a net worth of £32.9 billion, is the owner of the e-commerce behemoth AliBaba. The donated funds will aid global scientists in their quest to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, with £4.4 million earmarked for the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Jack Ma shared the announcement of his donation on the social media platform Weibo on Thursday, stating:
‘The Jack Ma Foundation will exhaust our abilities to provide more help to the development and growth of medical science.’
Ma’s foundation stated that it has donated 100 million yuan to “support the development of a coronavirus vaccine.”
“We know that the battle between humanity and disease is a long journey. This money will help various medical research efforts and help disease prevention,” it added.
Coronaviruses belong to a family of diseases that also includes the common cold and the virus responsible for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which originated in China in 2002 and claimed the lives of nearly 800 people worldwide.
It causes flu-like symptoms and can make it difficult for people to breathe, resulting in a significant number of fatalities globally among those who have contracted the illness.
The World Health Organization (WHO) emergency committee is anticipated to imminently declare the coronavirus as an international public health emergency.