The two leading taxi-hailing companies Ride and ZayRide are manning the front lines of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic by allocating funds to equip their drivers with face masks and gloves to curb its spread.

Ride has set aside two million Birr in initial funds, while ZayRide has already spent a little over one million Birr to procure face masks, gloves and hand sanitizer. Both companies have sent out educational mass texts about the Coronavirus to their drivers and users.

Ride, which began operation in March 2017 with a capital of 40,000 Br, is setting a precedent by allocating funds that will be used to supplement the income drivers will lose if they are quarantined because of the virus, which was first reported in Ethiopia on March 13, 2020. The number of people who acquired the virus in Ethiopia reached nine as of the end of last week.

Aside from the gloves that will be distributed to its 15,000 drivers, Ride is also donating masks and gloves to the Addis Abeba City Administration to be distributed to clinics across the city with shortages, according to Samrawit Fikru, co-founder and CEO of Ride, which trained its 350 administration staff on safety measures to avoid the spread of the virus.

The company has procured 30,000 masks and is in the process of distributing them. Additionally, the City Administration will receive the donations on March 30, 2020. The funds are also intended to provide budgetary support to Ride drivers who are not able to work because of the virus.

"Seven drivers are quarantined so far," said Samrawit, "and Ride is making sure they're getting the financial support they need."

Ride will be using the funds to identify new cases and isolate those who test positive, as well as help infected passengers or drivers. All of the company's drivers will be involved in some way with the operation. The funds will also go to provide free rides to people who may have or are exhibiting symptoms of the virus to the Yeka-Kotebe Hospital where they will be quarantined.

ZayRide is also disseminating 50,000 face masks for all its drivers. It will also distribute the masks and gloves to security personnel, traffic police and street kids.

"The government can't tackle this alone," said Habtamu Tadesse, CEO of ZayRide, which works with 7,000 drivers.

ZayRide is working to start a call centre in partnership with People to People (P2P), the City's Health Bureau and ARTS TV. They will be contracting 15 doctors to help run the call centre for a period of three months. The costs for this will be covered by the NGO.