Alibaba, Jack Ma foundations donate medical supplies to WHO

The Alibaba Foundation and the Jack Ma Foundation announced on Tuesday they were donating over 100 million face masks, 1 million N95 masks and 1 million test kits to the World Health Organization (WHO) to support its ongoing fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. 

WHO expresses its gratitude to Alibaba Foundation and Jack Ma Foundation on Twitter. [Photo courtesy of Alibaba Group]

The Alibaba Foundation is a charitable foundation funded by Alibaba Group. And the Jack Ma Foundation was established by Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba.

The WHO is expected to receive the medical supplies ­in the coming days and distribute the supplies to the countries and regions in urgent need.

The donation to the WHO is their latest effort to support the global fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Since February, the foundations have sourced and delivered various types of medical supplies to over 150 countries and regions across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America.

Last week, the WHO, the African Union and United Nations World Food Programme announced a United Nations “Solidarity Flight” which provided a large quantity of medical and personal protective equipment donated by Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation to all countries in Africa. 

A previous shipment of donated supplies from Alibaba Foundation and Jack Ma Foundation to Thailand [Photo courtesy of Alibaba Group]

The WHO previously supported the distribution of the first and second donations of medical supplies from Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation to 54 countries of Africa. These supplies were also transported with the help of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Ethiopian government, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), World Food Programme (WFP), and Ethiopian Airlines.

In addition to global donations of medical supplies, Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation have launched a number of global initiatives to support global medical communities in their fight against Covid-19. The Foundations established the Global MediXchange for Combating Covid-19 (GMCC) program for medical experts around the world to communicate seamlessly with each other and share their invaluable experience of fighting Covid-19. The Foundations have also published and distributed two handbooks, available in multiple languages and detailing learnings and best practices from thefirst andsecondaffiliatedhospitals, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, for treating Covid-19 patients:https://covid-19.alibabacloud.com/.

The Jack Ma Foundation is also funding research and development of Covid-19 vaccines and virus treatment options in China, at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Australia and at Columbia University in the U.S.