Do you have a Facebook account? Are you an active user? You can put your time to good use by donating for a cause: fighting against Ebola.
Facebook has just announced that it's putting up a Donate button above personal news feeds, and users can now donate money in any of the three organizations it currently supports. These include Red Cross, Save the Children, and International Media Corps. The button is available starting Thursday, November 6, and will remain in your page for about a week.
Aside from that, the biggest social media company is setting up 100 terminals that shall provide voice calls and Internet connection to Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, the three West African nations that have reported the highest number of cases and death tolls in this current outbreak, as part of medical support.
A few months ago, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, along with his wife, donated $25 million from his own pocket as a way of supporting drives against Ebola. According to him, Ebola has to be controlled as soon as possible to prevent it from spreading further and becoming a more prolonged global large-scale health issue, with a similar impact as polio or HIV.
The method of adding a Donate button in Facebook is not something new. The social media website also created one during the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest cyclones to be ever recorded. It struck Southeast Asia, most notably the Philippines where the number of deaths was more than 5,000 with over 1,000 still missing.
The recent Ebola virus disease (EVD) is considered the deadliest in its medical history. Based on the data of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as of November 5, Wednesday, the total number of cases has already reached to more than 13,000, with a death toll of almost 4,900. It's possible that the real number of cases is higher as many patients prefer to treat themselves at home.
