Alibaba founder and billionaire Jack Ma has donated a whopping $100 million CNY, some $14.
4 million, in order to expedite the development of coronavirus vaccine.
Mr. Ma, who is the richest man in China with a net worth of $48.2 billion, has announced he would be making a contribution towards the common threat on Wednesday, January 29.
The e-commerce giant’s founder also revealed that 40% of the funds would be directed at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to assist scientists in the development of a vaccine for the deadly novel coronavirus.
The rest of the donation will be split between numerous other science and research institutions in China and abroad in order to encourage better control and prevention of the disease.
“Jack Ma Foundation will exhaust our abilities to provide more help to the development and growth of medical science,” the mogul’s charity announced.
The good news came shortly after Alibaba pledged $144 million towards purchasing medical supplies in order to help hospitals in the Hubei Province stock up.
In the wake of the deadly coronavirus, Chinese tycoons have banded together and donated at least $650 million towards relief efforts.
Meanwhile, scientists in Australia have managed to grow the deadly novel coronavirus in a laboratory in hopes of studying the virus and expedite the development of the vaccine.
The breakthrough in medical science occurred at Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne where the scientists found a way to grow the dangerous virus in a high-security lab.
According to the reports, the experts had been working nonstop after successfully obtaining a sample of an infected person until they managed to grow it.
As the scientists have confirmed, growing the virus in the lab represents a major step forward in developing the vaccine and suppressing the outbreak.
Now, the contained virus will be forwarded to the World Health Organization who will distribute it to several labs across the globe in hopes that a vaccine for the novel coronavirus will be developed in less than two months.
While the Australian lab isn’t the first to manage to grow the virus, the Chinese lab that first succeeded in the task failed to provide other laboratories around the world with physical samples so that they could also start working on vaccine development.
As experts have explained, having the virus in a controlled physical form allows scientists to perform tests and see firsthand how the virus behaves and reacts in different conditions.
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