The Ice Bucket Challenge has been a tremendous success in raising money for ALS research. To date, a total of $88.5 million in donations — a full $85.9 million more than was raised during the same time period last year (July 29 to August 26) — has been raised.
There are still plenty of challenges being issued for the cause, drawing plenty of attention to the terrible disease that is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. There have also been a number of challenges issued bringing attention to other issues facing the country and the world, from actor Orlando Jones bringing attention to the problems in Ferguson, Missouri to actor Vin Diesel challenging people to plant trees.
NBA athlete and rookie of the Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid has often been the focus of attention on Twitter, generally for his zany tweets and comical pursuit of celebrity women. However, he offered a suggestion Tuesday afternoon to raise awareness for another great cause: Ebola.
Any chance we get that ice bucket challenge for Ebola?
— Joel SHMURDA Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) August 26, 2014
Embiid is from Cameroon, a country on the west coast of Africa. His home country is still far from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, where the ebola outbreak is rampant, but his heart is in the right place. According to the World Health Organization, the death toll is over 1,400 and the number of infections has risen to nearly 2,600 just since March.
- Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.
- EVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90-percent.
- EVD outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.
- The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
- Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus.
- Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. No licensed specific treatment or vaccine is available for use in people or animals. [Information from the World Health Organization]
There are a plenty of reputable organizations doing charitable work to help with the ebola outbreak in Africa. Two of the most well-known are UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders.
If you have the means, please donate and help as much as you can.
Previous Tweet Posts:
Philadelphia 76ers GM Sam Hinkie Addresses Joel Embiid’s Twitter Account
Tweet of the Night: JR Smith Says He’s On Pace To Be One Of The Best Shooters Ever
_______
Michael Brumagin writes the Tweet of the Day for SheridanHoops.com and is also a correspondent for BleacherReport.com. Follow @mbrumagin