Bill Gates says the novel coronavirus is a 'once-in-a-century pathogen.' The Gates Foundation just joined Wellcome and Mastercard in committing $125 million to find new treatments for it.

The organizations said Tuesday that the funding would be used for a COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator "to speed-up the response to the COVID-19 epidemic by identifying, assessing, developing, and scaling-up treatments."
Bill Gates has been sounding the alarm on the COVID-19 coronavirus, calling it a "pandemic," though the World Health Organization has yet to give it that distinction.
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The Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard, are hoping $125 million could spark some new ways to treat the novel coronavirus that's spreading around the world .

The Gates Foundation said Tuesday it's committing $50 million to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, as is Wellcome. Mastercard's Impact Fund is committing the remaining $25 million, according to a statement.

It'll be used as seed funding "to speed-up the response to the COVID-19 epidemic by identifying, assessing, developing, and scaling-up treatments," the organizations said in a statement . COVID-19 is the name of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The Gates Foundation said the $50 million is part of the $100 million commitment the organization made to fight the outbreak in early February.

Around the world, nearly 116,000 people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, and there have been 4,000 deaths. There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments, though companies are racing to change that .

As part of the accelerator, the organizations will evaluate both new and repurposed drugs that could help in the treatment of the disease.

"Any disease which threatens lives is disturbing, but one for which there is no treatment is especially alarming," Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman wrote in a blog Tuesday . "And, as we've already seen with COVID-19, countries and communities bear immense human, economic, and social costs."

Bill Gates has been sounding the alarm on the coronavirus, calling it a "pandemic," though the World Health Organization has yet to give it that distinction.

"In the past week, COVID-19 has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we've been worried about," Gates wrote in February in the New England Journal of Medicine .

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Bill Gates says the novel coronavirus is a 'once-in-a-century pathogen.' The Gates Foundation just joined Wellcome and Mastercard in committing $125 million to find new treatments for it.

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