HIV and AIDS
GlaxoSmithKline has provided further support for the existing UN-led programme to reduce Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV in 25 developing countries.

Positive Action – the long-term international programme of HIV education and community care – launched a new initiative to increase the involvement of people living with HIV in support of the UN International Partnership Against AIDS in Africa.

In July 2000 GlaxoSmithKline was a principal sponsor of the 13th World AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, reinforcing the company’s commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Lymphatic Filariasis
In the third year of its global humanitarian programme to help eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF, a disabling tropical disease also known as elephantiasis) GlaxoSmithKline donated over 34 million treatments of its antiparasitic drug albendazole to more than 20 developing world countries in 2000.

It is estimated that GlaxoSmithKline will provide about five billion treatments of albendazole over the next 20 years in the fight to break transmission of LF, a parasitic disease that is spread by mosquitoes. To prevent the disease, the World Health Organisation advises that albendazole is co-administered with either diethylcarbamazine (DEC) or ivermectin as a single annual treatment for four to six years to entire endemic communities.

GlaxoSmithKline also actively participates in the LF Global Alliance – a coalition of GlaxoSmithKline, the World Health Organisation and some 30 public, private and academic institutions and the Ministries of Health in the 80 endemic countries.

Malaria
GlaxoSmithKline is working in partnership with Roll Back Malaria and other international and national stakeholders to develop and implement innovative and sustainable plans to reduce suffering and deaths from malaria.

The company has been undertaking pilot programmes in Kenya and Uganda to assess the feasibility of using donations of its product Malarone. In order to preserve the efficacy of Malarone and, as far as possible, prevent the emergence of resistance to it, it is important that the product is reserved for use when first and second-line anti-malarials are ineffective. Pilot sites have been successfully following a protocol for determining which patients require treatment with Malarone and which patients can be treated with standard therapies.

Tuberculosis
Action TB was launched in July 1993 when GlaxoSmithKline committed £10 million over five years to fund research in universities in the UK, South Africa and Canada. On World TB day in 1998, GlaxoSmithKline announced a further £10 million to fund Action TB for another five years.

The goals of the programme are to deliver: a drug in early stages of development together with a backup or alternative candidate; a vaccine in early stages of development including identification of candidate antigens; and identification of surrogate markers for use in drug and vaccine trials.

Community programmes – United Kingdom
The company’s partnership with the Department of Health and the charity Barnardo’s to establish the Right Fit programme is in its third year. Right Fit is a major initiative which helps young people, teachers and youth workers tackle smoking, diet and fitness. GlaxoSmithKline’s donation of £3 million, spread over the three-year life of the project, is the largest single contribution made by the company in the UK. The objective of the programme is to make a positive impact on the health of young people in the UK and the results so far have been very encouraging with 175 projects being supported, benefiting over 150,000 young people.

GlaxoSmithKline provided £500,000 for medical research. This is an annual scheme, with £3.7 million awarded to over 40 medical research projects in the last eight years. Eight charities are invited to apply each year and five projects are selected for funding of approximately £100,000 each. The charities funded through this programme in 2000 were: Diabetes UK, Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Digestive Disorders Foundation, Meningitis Research Foundation and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

GlaxoSmithKline’s annual IMPACT Awards programme recognises the excellent work of small charities working in the healthcare sector. Ten winners each received an award of an unrestricted £25,000. Winning charities ranged from those supporting the health needs of male and female sex workers to community care services and carer support in isolated areas of the Scottish Highlands.

A joint venture between VSO and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health received a £150,000 donation to fund ten trainee consultant paediatricians (five in 2000 and five in 2001), to spend a year of their higher specialist training in a developing country as a VSO volunteer. The focus is on providing and sharing paediatric skills in areas where they are most needed for the benefit of poor and disadvantaged children.

A £45,000 donation enabled the charity Beating Bowel Cancer to provide equipment for centres which will assist in the early diagnosis of the disease. Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK and causes almost 50 per cent more deaths than breast cancer.

Community programmes – Europe
Programmes in Europe focused on children’s health:

Support was provided for Reaching Young Europe, run by Befrienders International (the umbrella organisation for the Samaritan movement worldwide), which helps children develop skills to cope with stress (£200,000).

Funding was provided for two programmes run by the aid organisation, Project HOPE: in Russia, to combat substance abuse (£100,000); in Bosnia, a paediatric rehabilitation programme (£130,000).

The Barretstown Gang Camp in Ireland, which supports seriously ill children from all over Europe, received £420,000.

Community programmes – North America
Community Partnership focused on better access to better healthcare. Grants of $4.0 million were awarded through the North America Community Partnership Team.

There is a $4.5 million (three-year) initiative by GlaxoSmithKline and the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute on Ageing.

A three-year Children’s Health Fund grant of $2.1 million was made to support the Referred Initiative Programme, ensuring children without medical insurance receive healthcare services.

In the US IMPACT Awards programme, ten grants of $40,000 were made to healthcare organisations in recognition of their exceptional work in the delivery of community healthcare.

Community programmes – Rest of World
Outside Europe and the USA the focus was on health education.

GlaxoSmithKline’s PHASE (Personal Hygiene and Sanitation Education) is a health education programme that targets primary school children aged 6 to 13 years, with the goal of reducing diarrhoea-related disease associated with poor hygiene. This schools initiative was extended from its pilot countries of Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire to include Uganda, Peru and Nicaragua (£575,000).

GlaxoSmithKline’s two indigenous community healthcare initiatives in Northern Queensland, Australia, are designed to implement community-led programmes that will improve the health of indigenous communities. These are now developing into replicable community-led models (£110,000).

Charitable support
Charitable donations by GlaxoSmithKline companies around the world totalled approximately £30 million in 2000.

In the UK GlaxoSmithKline made charitable donations of some £6 million for projects both in the UK and in the developing world, with particular emphasis in the areas of UK and international healthcare, medical and scientific education, the environment and the arts. Additionally GlaxoSmithKline UK operating companies contributed a further £1 million by way of community investment in the communities local to their factories and sites.