Guatemala

The Pfizer Global Health Fellows program utilizes the professional expertise of Pfizer employees through specialized volunteer assignments with nonprofit organizations to improve health care services for underserved communities around the world. Since 2003, more than 230 employees with a range of technical skills have served in 39 nations for 3-6 month assignments investing nearly 200,000 hours of skills-based service to help increase the capacity of nonprofits organizations providing health care to the underserved (in the reporting period, 54 Global Health Fellows were deployed).

Onchocerciasis, or river blindness, is a leading cause of infectious blindness in the developing world. The Merck Mectizan Donation Program (MDP) was launched in 1987, when Merck & Co., Inc. announced that it would donate Mectizan (ivermectin), for the treatment of onchocerciasis to all who needed it for as long as needed.

In April 2007, Bayer signed a new agreement to provide the World Health Organization (WHO) with 2.5 million Lampit tablets and additional funding for the distribution of the drug. The latest agreement assures the supply of Lampit until 2012. To widen access of patients to affordable medicines, Bayer HealthCare signed agreements with the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2004 and 2005 for donations of its medicine Lampit (nifurtimox) to combat Chagas disease, the form of sleeping sickness found in Latin America.