LG to donate 2,000 smartphones to UN's Ebola effort
The phones will go to healthcare workers and other people sent by the United Nations to combat the deadly disease in West Africa.
LG is trying to do its part to help in the fight against the Ebola virus.
The mobile phone maker announced Wednesday that it will contribute 2,000 smartphones to the United Nations toward getting the Ebola threat under control. The UN will send the donated phones to healthcare staff and other people working in the areas affected by the disease. The goal is to use the smartphones for quick communication among the people on the ground who are focused on collecting, monitoring, and planning critical medical data.
The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) will handle the distribution of the phones.
"We hope that our contribution will make a difference as the UN and NGOs fight on the front lines to improve healthcare, food security and sanitation in areas affected by the Ebola epidemic," Choong-hak Lee, senior vice president and head of LG's corporate social responsibility efforts, said in a statement.
LG's contribution follows a similar one from Samsung, which announced Tuesday that it will donate 3,000 Galaxy S3 Neo smartphones to help in the fight against Ebola. The UN's OCHA division will manage the distribution of the Samsung phones where they will go to 60 Ebola medical clinics in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
The Ebola epidemic, centered in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, has infected more than 9,200 people and killed more than 4,500, according to the CDC Foundation. The disease has also spread into the United States and Europe (tracked here by The New York Times), with several isolated cases and deaths reported so far.