Madonna has announced she has donated £1million to the Gates Philanthropy Partners’ COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator in order to help find a cure for coronavirus.
In a lengthy statement shared to her website Madona.com, the pop star, 61, said she is ‘so impressed by the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’ that she wants to contribute to the cause.
The Microsoft billionaire announced his plans to fund seven different research labs in order to find a cure for the virus on Thursday.
Charity: Madonna has announced that she has donated 1 million to the Gates Philanthropy Partners’ COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator in order to help find a cure for coronavirus
Madonna shared a video to her Instagram page on Friday and announced the news of her hefty donation to fans.
She said: ‘Individually and globally we are obviously living in a state of emergency, I must admit it took me time to accept and process and modify my own lifestyle.’
‘I’m joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation effort to find a drug that will prevent or treat COVID-19.
‘We need this to protect our health workers, the most vulnerable, and all of our friends and families.
Impressive: The Microsoft billionaire announced his plans to fund seven different research labs in order to find a cure for the virus on Thursday
‘I’m talking about this: I am so impressed by the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator’s urgent efforts to find new or existing drugs that could effectively prevent or treat the disease.
‘Harnessing the strength and knowledge of the research community, the Accelerator’s critical scientific progress will inform how we end this pandemic and prevent future impact from the virus.
‘I send enormous gratitude and strength to the courageous first responders, medical professionals and scientists who are protecting our communities, those suffering and our most vulnerable.’
Reaching out: Madonna shared a video to her Instagram page on Friday and announced the news of her hefty donation to fans
Bill revealed his charity’s aim on The Daily Show and told host Trever Noah: ‘Because our foundation has such deep expertise in infectious diseases, we’ve thought about the epidemic, we did fund some things to be more prepared, like a vaccine effort,’
He continued: ‘Our early money can accelerate things.’
The entrepreneur said he was picking the top seven vaccine candidates and building manufacturing capacity for them.
He said: ‘Even though we’ll end up picking at most two of them, we’re going to fund factories for all seven, just so that we don’t waste time in serially saying, “ok, which vaccine works?” and then building the factory.’
Global coronavirus cases have soared past one million as the pandemic explodes in the US and the death tolls continue to climb in Italy and Spain, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The deadly virus has killed more than 52,000 across the world, with the largest number of deaths in Italy, followed by Spain and the US.
The first 100,000 cases were reported in around 55 days, the first 500,000 in 76 days, and they doubled to one million within the past eight days.
There are 117 countries and territories that have reported over 100 cases, 50 with outbreaks of over 1,000 and seven that have reported 50,000 or more COVID-19 cases, mainly in Europe.
The global fatality rate is now over 5 per cent of all reported cases, with countries including the UK, the US and Spain reporting a spike in fatalities over recent days.
Around 22 per cent of total cases have been reported by the US, while Italy and Spain have each reported 11 per cent of global cases.
Scientists are working tirelessly to discover more about COVID-19 and to create a vaccine.
She said: ‘Individually and globally we are obviously living in a state of emergency, I must admit it took me time to accept and process and modify my own lifestyle’