In a very noble initiative, one of the biggest drug manufacturers from Great Britain, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has formed a partnership with the famous charity group Save the Children for developing new medicines in order to bring down the child mortality rate in Africa. According to the chief executive of Save the Children, Justin Forsyth, despite the risk of sounding controversial, this alliance between charity and the drug giant also has a huge potential in saving millions of lives of children in Africa. For example, they are already planning to develop a new gel from the formula of mouthwash that could be applied to the baby’s umbilical cord in order to stop infection.
Key Role
The new partnership of GSK with the charity group will encourage other such alliances for such noble efforts like saving lives in poor and developing nations. According to the chief executive of GSK, Sir Andrew Witty, by involving an NGO (non-governmental organization) like Save the Children, they are planning to donate around 15million pounds to this charity group over the next few years solely for the purpose of saving children’s lives. He also added that this kind of partnership is also an amazing opportunity to bring a positive change in the society. At the beginning, their programs will be operated from Kenya and DR Congo and later these will be spread in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia in the form of other initiatives.
Harnessing power
At the very beginning, their tackling of child mortality efforts will start by identifying the main causes of children’s death and then intervening with the help of simple yet effective methods to kill the causes. Mr. Forsyth also admitted that because of GSK’s previous reputation as an expensive drug producing company, their charity organization would not have made any kind of partnership with them. But due to the recent changes in the marketing and prices of the GSK drugs in order to make basic drugs affordable to everyone, it has been fairly hailed by many charity groups and also by the media. So, it has been made clear that the company is not expecting to make any return from their activities with Save the Children and is only determined to save lives of those underprivileged children of Africa. However, they are not looking forward to make a loss either and will work effectively to make their efforts sustainable. Therefore, if GSK can keep their promises with Save the Children and can convert their words into actions then it can be expected that many children in Africa will get the opportunity to live and grow up to be healthy human beings in the next few years.