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CR Report 2005
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The gift of life - GSK product donations

Case Study

The gift of life - GSK product donations

GSK antibiotics fight both common and life-threatening infections. In 2005 we donated antibiotics and other medicines worth £27 million in response to disaster relief efforts, as travel packs for medics on humanitarian missions and to support healthcare provision in impoverished communities.

Three-year old Rosa Angelica Pravia is just one of the thousands of people to have benefited. She was admitted to a hospital in a remote part of South America where the doctor feared her infection could result in meningitis. Her father earns just $2 a day cleaning pineapples and there are 10 children in the family, so they could not afford medicine to treat her. Fortunately the hospital had just received a donation of medicines from MAP International, including GSK’s antibiotic Ceftin. Within three days Rosa was out of danger. Her doctor said the Ceftin had saved her life.

Many of these products are donated in response to specific requests from relief charities such as AmeriCares, Direct Relief, InterChurch Medical Assistance, MAP International and Project HOPE.

MAP International uses donations of GSK antibiotics such as Augmentin and Amoxil in travel packs for its medical missions. The packs are compact, fully stocked, portable pharmacies that enable the teams to treat a wide range of illnesses in developing countries. “The antibiotics treated many infections, some of which were life threatening,” a MAP team reported recently after a mission to Zambia. “The local doctors told us that they can go to remote villages to see patients who do not have the resources to fill prescriptions. Without GSK’s help we would not have been able to see so many patients and help them with medication.”