Industry contributes to disaster relief in Asia
pharmafile | January 6, 2005 | News story | Sales and Marketing | AZ, GSK, WHO, disaster, relief, tsunami
Pharmaceutical companies have joined worldwide efforts to bring relief to areas devastated by the tsunami in Asia, donating money and stocks of essential medicines to prevent further deaths from water-borne and other infectious diseases amid the devastation.
The death toll has now reached 150,000 across the region but the World Health Organisation and NGOs are warning that millions of people are at risk of disease because of damage to sanitation systems and contamination of drinking water.
Meanwhile, WHO says $20 million of funding is needed to provide essential drugs and other medical supplies and equipment to stabilise the situation in the first 100 days.
The speed and scale of the response from around the world has been unprecedented, with pharmaceutical companies acting swiftly to provide funding and medicines in collaboration with aid agencies and governments.
A number of pharma companies have been directly affected by the disaster, with employees of GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca among those confirmed dead, but others are among the thousands still missing across the region.
Two Swedish employees of AstraZeneca died in the disaster, while a female member of staff at GSK in Brentford is reported dead in Sri Lanka, with another from GSK Finland still missing.
Sanofi-Aventis’ chief executive Jean-Francois Dehecq is currently accompanying France minister for humanitarian aid Philippe Douste-Blazy in a mission to Sri Lanka to provide six tons of the company’s medicines, made up of 70,000 packs of antibiotics, anti-diarrhoea medicines and antibacterial treatments.
Pfizer is contributing $10 million to local and international relief organisations operating in the region, with a further pledge of $25 million worth of Pfizer medicines and healthcare products as the region slowly recovers from the disaster.
AstraZeneca has pledged a cash donation of $600,000 primarily through Red Cross organisations in Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia and will also supply antibiotics and anaesthetics.
GSK has focused its efforts on sending essential medicines and vaccines to the affected countries, including one million doses of antibiotics and 600,000 doses of typhoid and hepatitis A vaccines. The company has pledged a further one million doses of antibiotics while working closely with its non-profit partners, AmeriCares, MAP International and Project HOPE.
The impact of the disaster has touched pharma employees around the world, with sympathy for the region expressed in a number of different ways, including Abbott employees in Egypt and Bayer employees in India volunteering wages to assist in relief efforts.
Bayer has around 5,700 employees in India, Indonesia and Thailand, the three countries worst affected by the tsunami, but says no employees were killed or injured in the disaster, with its sites also escaping damage.
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