Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner donated $3 million through his Milner Foundation to three Israeli institutions working to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the foundation announced on Tuesday.
The money will go to Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom, which is launching an innovative project to reduce the number of people visiting clinics; Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, to support research efforts dedicated to developing treatment for COVID-19; and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Ichilov Hospital to fund its intensive-care unit that is treating coronavirus patients.
The donation was carried out in cooperation with Israel’s Consul-General to the Pacific North West in San Francisco, Shlomi Kofman.
Milner, an Israeli citizen living in Silicon Valley who founded the Milner Foundation with his wife, Julia, said about the donation, “This is an investment in the present and the future. In the short term, it’s a way to increase the intensive-care unit capacity in Israel and relieve pressure on doctors, and in the longer term, it will support the search for a cure and help develop a new system of virtual medical treatment.”
He continued, “In the face of global threats like this, science, technology and innovation are our best hopes. Israel is a leader in those fields, and I hope this initiative can both make an impact on COVID-19 and also become a model that can be replicated by other countries.”
