May 2022
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Note from Elizabeth (EJ) Ashbourne, PQMD Executive Director

As we approach the summer months, PQMD is not slowing down! This month, I was honored to join Julie Varughese and Gabriela Salvador from Americares and Michelle Williams, renowned epidemiologist and dean of faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, to discuss top priorities in working toward medicines security, health equity, the importance of quality standards, and the need for partnerships not only for donations but to help boost local capacity to maintain quality standards. If you missed this conversation or other sessions during the Americares Summit, you can view the recording.

Additionally, PQMD held a Pillar Talk on the humanitarian health response to the Ukraine crisis with members from PQMD member NGOs including International Medical Corps, Heart to Heart International, Medical Teams International, Direct Relief and Project HOPE. They shared their unique perspectives and up-to-date information giving participants a frontline view of the humanitarian response to this unfolding and heart-wrenching crisis. If you missed it, you can watch the recording

Also this month, I had the pleasure of hosting an in-person meeting to discuss PQMD’s Global Alliance of Rare Diseases (GARDaccess) initiative in Annapolis as our team strategized next steps for this important project and to make necessary decisions on how to move forward with both the new quality guidelines for rare disease medicines, and the initiative framework. You can find the latest GARDaccess update in the newsletter below.

This summer, we are looking forward to Guidelines Week in July, upcoming Pillar Talks and Coffee Chats, the start of our Global Health & Development Essentials course (there is still time to register!), planning for our October Forum and supporting our incredible members in the work they do every day. Please enjoy the warm weather and stay safe! 


PQMD Welcomes Children International to Membership 

The Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD), is proud to announce the addition of Children International to their membership. The non-profit organization, a top-rated humanitarian organization focused on ending generational poverty, brings PQMD’s membership to 48 member NGOs and Corporations.

“We are proud to join The Partnership for Quality Medical Donations and the many remarkable organizations that make up its membership,” said Susana Eshleman, CEO for Children International. “Ensuring children and youth have access to quality and affordable healthcare is a pillar of the work we do at Children International. From providing dental care, medical exams and supporting malnourished children to enabling stronger community-led health systems, we work diligently toward health equity around the world. This partnership with PQMD will help us continue to realize our vision of bringing people together to end poverty for good.”

Children International, based in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, is a global nonprofit humanitarian organization working to help end the cycle of generational poverty. Through a long-term, customized approach, Children International supports children and youth for the first two decades of their lives, providing access to information and inspiration in the areas of health, education, empowerment through life skills, and employment. When equipped to transform their own lives, young people also transform their families and communities, and, as a result, multiply good in the world.

“Children International’s focus on health, education, empowerment and employment for children in poverty around the world ensures the sustainability of their programs for lasting change in disadvantaged communities. To support the achievement of its programmatic objectives, the organization supports its affiliated country offices and partner NGOs with funding to import and distribute product donations. Children International is committed to a high-quality medical Gifts In Kind program that adheres to PQMD guidelines and best practices. The organization was a natural fit for our network,” says EJ Ashbourne, Executive Director of PQMD. “We are thrilled to welcome Children International to PQMD.”

Read the full press release on our website here. 

 

Global Alliance for Rare Diseases (GARDaccess) Update

GARD Leadership team met in-person on May 2nd in Annapolis to discuss next steps for the project. The team agreed to change the name of the project to GARDaccess based on feedback from various stakeholders that GARD was overlapping with a NIH project. A plan for the July in-person meeting was developed to ensure we have a productive meeting. Additionally, the team mapped out activities for the rest of the year and the plan to provide a mid-year update to GARDaccess supporters.

Other updates include:

Guidelines Workstream update:

• The status of the guidelines was presented at the joint workstream meeting.

• We are further exploring how best to complete the M&E guideline and soliciting additional input from individuals with prior experience

• Revisions and a second draft will be completed by the end of May

Framework Workstream update:

• The Framework draft has moved forward to include the proposed Mission, Vision, Strategies, and Implementation approach for the new organization

• Project leads developed a proposal to establish the GARD secretariat and organizational structure which was presented at the joint workstream meeting

Additional networking continues to ensure we are making every effort to obtain input from a wider set of stakeholders.


PQMD Executive Director Elizabeth Ashbourne Participates on Americares Panel

PQMD’s Executive Director, Elizabeth Ashbourne, spoke on May 4th at Americares Partner Summit. Along with Julie Varughese and Gabriela Salvador from Americares and Michelle Williams, renowned epidemiologist and dean of faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, she discussed top priorities in working toward medicines security, the importance of quality standards, and the need for partnerships not only for donations but to help boost local capacity to maintain quality standards for supply, delivery and compliance of medicines and medical products to every county, clinic, provider and patient.

Hosted by CNN Anchor and National Correspondent Erica Hill & featuring Thrive Global Founder & CEO Arianna Huffington, the Summit explored the theme “FutureNow,” highlighting how COVID-19 has propelled us into the future.

If you missed this session or want to view the entire summit, you can watch the recording.

Global Health & Development Essentials Course

Summer Session Starts June 15th!  

Summer: June 15 – July 27, 2022

Fall: September 14 – October 26, 2022

Each session includes seven weekly classes scheduled from 12:00-2:00pm (EST)

PQMD has condensed key elements of a Master’s in Public Health curriculum to create a comprehensive Executive Survey Course on global health, for professionals or students working in the space but lacking relevant formal education.

The course compresses much of the MPH curriculum with an emphasis on global concerns; participants gain an improved understanding of health disparities around the world and how they’re measured, health systems in low and lower-middle income countries, the global frameworks and key players providing sustained humanitarian assistance for global health development, and the dynamics and coordination of international disaster response.

Register Now!
Measuring for Success

PQMD's Announces New Aligned Metrics Initiative (AMI)

PQMD is so pleased to announce our new Aligned Metrics Initiative (AMI) seeking to publish an agreed upon set of impact metrics for healthcare product donations.  Donated products are an important component of global health programs – contributing in various ways to lifesaving, life enhancing work around the world. PQMD’s members are experts at placing products through various channels – companies and NGO’s partner on produce to give models, effective placement of excess product, specialized mission team support, patient-specific initiatives such as treatment for rare diseases and safety-net programming and finally on-going disaster response and patient specific initiatives. Improving the measurement and evaluation (M&E) of these efforts, specifically to the impact of any donated healthcare products is essential to improving quality and amplifying the effectiveness of product donations. There is growing consensus within the PQMD network that a core set of relatable metrics for health product donations will allow for progress in best practices and comparability across distinct product donation channels. True to PQMD’s core values, AMI is a new collaborative initiative that will nurture opportunities to learn equitably from industry experts across sectors, highlight trends and support emerging best practices with practical tools.  AMI has three major objectives: 1) Provide a key list of accepted impact metrics for different types of product donations, 2) Deliver practical guidance + tools on employing the indicators, and 3) Support a community of practice in adopting, learning, and sharing.

To learn more please visit this link.
PQMD is seeking a creative professional to provide lead technical assistance for AMI – please share our latest consulting opportunity



PQMD Pillar Talk: The Ukraine Crisis: A Window into the Humanitarian Health Response- Recording Now Available! 

On May 19th, PQMD held a Pillar Talk on the humanitarian health response to the current Ukraine crisis and war. During this timely and exclusive discussion responding PQMD member organizations shared their unique perspectives and up-to-date information giving participants a frontline view of the humanitarian response to this unfolding and heart-wrenching crisis.

PQMD members are among those relentlessly leading the charge to coordinate, assist, and implement aid efforts in response to the Ukraine crisis. Our members are working with health agencies and local partners to support a devastated health sector in Ukraine and overburdened health systems in the surrounding countries experiencing an influx of millions of traumatized refugees. Despite enduring crisis-overload, humanitarian workers are tirelessly providing relief today and preparing for the unforeseeable future.

If you missed this Pillar Talk, you can view the recording. 


GHPF PQMD Member Panelists Share Curated Resources for Latin America, Middle East, and Africa on the CoP 

During this year’s Global Health Policy Forum Round Table Series our esteemed panelists from PQMD’s extended regional network in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa were able to cover a wide-breadth of diverse topics ranging from migration in Latin America; concurrent delivery of humanitarian aid and development in the Middle East; and pandemic related resiliency challenges and opportunities in Africa.

In addition to the keen insights the panelist brought to us during these discussions, they have also taken the time to share some of the resources they turn to: to stay up-to-date on the latest stats; take a deeper dive in the drivers, barriers, and opportunities related to these crises; and share commentary and best practices from the organizations they work for and partner with.

Click here to access these curated resources.

If you missed any of these informative events you can view recordings here.

Are you considering donating products to help in the Ukraine Crisis?


PQMD’s guidelines will help ensure that donation efforts are as effective as possible.

Learn more about PQMD’s Medical Donation Guidelines which provide best practices and the highest standards to address the sometimes-complicated practice of providing medical donations around the world.

If you are interested in information and resource sharing related to the response to the Ukraine crisis, please contact Victoria Hammond who can give you access to the platform on the CoP. 


IMA World Health- Tackling malaria and NTDs contributes to more resilient health systems

People living in fragile settings are the most at risk of contracting malaria and NTDs yet are the least likely to have access to adequate health care.

Building the capacity of local health facilities and community health workers to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria and NTDs in fragile settings can lead to more resilient health systems and greater global health security overall.

According to Dr Lali Chania, Tanzania Country Director of IMA World Health: “Health systems in fragile settings, if they exist at all, are beset by external and internal challenges, including but not limited to violence, lack of infrastructure and resources, corruption, access inequities, weak governance and limited human capital. Yet fragile settings have a higher disease burden than other low-income countries.”

Poor public health perpetuates the cycles of poverty and fragility and vice versa. As the number of fragile settings increases, so too does global insecurity and economic instability. That is why IMA World Health is committed to health systems strengthening in fragile settings.

Building on malaria and NTD programming successes

“The local partnerships, trust and capacities we have built through our malaria and NTD programming in fragile settings are key for any health systems strengthening efforts to be successful in these complex environments,” says Chania.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, the organization has collaborated with local health facilities to improve access to malaria prevention, diagnostic and treatment services for more than 11.4 million people.

Poor public health perpetuates the cycles of poverty and fragility and vice versa

Across Tanzania and Haiti, 28.8 million people are no longer at risk for lymphatic filariasis since IMA has strengthened the capacity of local health systems to sustainably administer NTD control measures. IMA’s health partners in these fragile settings are leveraging these capacities to meet other critical health care needs.

Dr Chania suggests: “The surveillance and case-based notification and response capacities required to eliminate malaria and NTDs are also what is required to stop epidemics from becoming pandemics, like COVID-19. Integrating those capacities into health systems will not only improve that system’s resilience to the shocks common in fragile settings, it will improve global health security.”

View the article and learn more about IMA World Health here.


Sanofi reorganizes philanthropy effort, debuts Foundation S 'think and do tank' 

Sanofi is advancing its philanthropy commitment with the newly created Foundation S — The Sanofi Collective. The new organization subsumes the Sanofi Espoir Foundation — “espoir” means hope in French — taking on a new business model with more flexibility and a “think and do tank” structure.

The think and do model includes a traditional think tank with an external committee of experts to guide the foundation’s roadmap, but also a “do tank” operations arm that will work to lend and deploy Sanofi employee expertise when and where it is needed.

The annual budget for Foundation S is €10 million, but that is just the beginning, said the philanthropic group’s head Vanina Laurent-Ledru said. The legal structure allows Foundation S to work with Sanofi for additional medicine and vaccine donations, for instance.

That’s exactly what happened in Ukraine where Foundation S stepped up as soon as the war began pledging €5 million to partner groups including the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) but also donating €22 million worth of drugs and vaccines provided by Sanofi.

Read the full article here.

Heart to Heart International delivering $34 million in medical aid to Ukraine

To help the people of Ukraine with medical aid, Heart to Heart International has partnered with an organization in Slovakia to deliver $15 million worth of medical supplies.

The shipment includes medicines, medical supplies, hygiene kits and blankets. After its arrival at a warehouse in Slovakia, where they will be packaged and distributed to facilities in need through a network of trucks that can bring them to Ukraine.

In addition to the $15 million worth of relief supplies, the shipment includes three 20-foot containers donated by Worksite Labs — one serves as a mobile diagnostic laboratory and the other two are portable clinics containing medical supplies, 4,800 meals and 3,600 hygiene kits.

Dan Neal, vice president of operations for Heart to Heart, was recently interviewed by their local NPR. He spoke from Slovakia where he and his colleagues had been in Uzhhorod, a city in western Ukraine just across the border with Slovakia, to visit the warehouse, see the distribution system and meet their Ukrainian counterparts.

To read the article, visit here

Pfizer Launches 'An Accord for a Healthier World' to Improve Health Equity for 1.2 Billion People Living in 45 Lower-Income Countries

On May 25th, Pfizer, Inc. launched  ‘An Accord for a Healthier World.’ This groundbreaking initiative aims to provide all of Pfizer’s patented, high-quality medicines and vaccines available in the U.S. or the European Union on a not-for-profit basis to 1.2 billion people in 45 lower-income countries. The Accord seeks to greatly reduce the health inequities that exist between many lower-income countries and the rest of the world.

The Accord countries include all 27 low-income countries as well as 18 lower-middle-income countries that have transitioned from low to lower-middle-income classification in the last ten years. Pfizer will work with healthcare officials in Rwanda, Ghana, Malawi, Senegal and Uganda to identify early insights and opportunities to ensure all medicines and vaccines can reach those in need. This will include expertise to support diagnosis, healthcare professional education and training along with supply chain management and other infrastructure enhancements. Learnings from these five countries will be applied to support the roll out for the remaining forty countries.

Under the Accord, Pfizer has committed to provide 23 medicines and vaccines that treat infectious diseases, certain cancers, and rare and inflammatory diseases. Making these medicines and vaccines more readily available has the potential to treat non-communicable and infectious diseases that claim the lives of nearly one million people each year in these countries and chronic diseases that significantly impact quality of life for at least half a million more1. As Pfizer launches new medicines and vaccines, those products will also be included in the Accord portfolio on a not-for-profit basis.

Read the full press release on Pfizer's website here.

World Vision launches global response to escalating hunger crisis as millions of children face starvation

World Vision, the global humanitarian organization, has declared a Global Hunger Response as extreme hunger around the world dramatically increases.  About 45 million people face starvation without urgent life-saving assistance.

“Food insecurity and malnutrition can lead to the needless death of hundreds of thousands of children and forces families to utilize negative coping mechanisms such as early marriage and child labor,” said Edgar Sandoval Sr., World Vision’s president and CEO. “God is calling us to urgent action to save lives now.”

The war in Ukraine has created a catastrophe upon a catastrophe. Increasing costs of fuel, fertilizer and wheat, exacerbated by port closures, sanctions and trade restrictions arising from the war, are now supercharging the hunger crisis to create the potential for mass starvation across hunger hotspots in multiple nations around the world.

World Vision’s 18-month Global Hunger Response will focus on these hotspots where children are one step away from famine or facing starvation. The plan – targeting 24 countries – builds on efforts to address widespread hunger and malnutrition that have already reached 11.5 million people, but which now need to be expanded to keep pace with the worsening situation.

The scale of need is so immense that this is only the second time in its history that World Vision has launched a global response of this size and scope – its COVID-19 pandemic response being the first.

To read the full press release, visit World Vision's website here.

 

Johnson & Johnson- New Global Surgery Initiative Aims to Improve Access to Quality Surgical Care in Resource-Limited Settings

At the 75th World Health Assembly, J&J proudly announced a new Global Surgery initiative aimed at supporting broader access to surgical treatments for people living in low- and middle-income countries, beginning in Kenya and Malawi. The new initiative will work from the lab to the last mile of health delivery to develop and deliver approaches, technologies and procedures designed specifically for use in resource-limited settings to treat obstetric fistula and long bone fractures.

By combining the strengths and expertise of Johnson & Johnson with global and local collaborators, the initiative aims to accelerate access by streamlining supply chains, reducing costs and better equipping surgeons and health systems to meet the needs of the patients and communities they serve.

The newly launched Global Surgery initiative builds on the expertise and legacy of Johnson & Johnson MedTech, which has worked for over a century to revolutionize surgical systems and instruments for a range of medical conditions. From the first mass production of sterile sutures in 1887 to revolutionizing the way doctors perform surgery today with cutting-edge digital technologies, Johnson & Johnson has remained committed to driving innovation to provide the safest and most effective treatment in operating rooms around the world.


To read the full press release, visit J&J's website here.

Upcoming Events

International Medical Corps Annual Spring Luncheon
June 1, 2022; 12:00-2:00pm

Medical Teams International Event- Field of Dreams
Seattle, Washington; June 4, 2022

Ensuring the Delivery of Essential Health Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A WASH and Infection Prevention Response Across Five Countries
June 9, 2022; 9am ET

Save the Date: Devex World 2022
July 12, 2022

Concordia Annual Summit
September 19-21. 2022; New York & Digital

COR-NTD Meeting
October 4-5, 2022; Virtual

PQMD Educational Forum (Members Only) 
October 17-19, 2022; Seattle, Washington

Development2030- Beyond Aid
November 16-17, 2022; Brussels, Belgium




Does your organization have news to share?
Contact
 Beth Haynes for placement in future newsletters.
Next Month's Theme: Refugees & IDPs

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