Helping HIV/AIDS Patients
- The The Abbott Fund–Baylor Children's Centre of Excellence–Malawi is modeled after the pioneering work conducted by Baylor and The Abbott Fund at the Romanian-American Children's Center, which opened in April of 2001 in Constanta, Romania. Directed by Baylor's Mark Kline, MD, the clinic model has rapidly expanded into Botswana, Uganda, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi and Burkina Faso.
Abbott recognizes the serious social, economic and health impact of HIV/AIDS globally in the developing world. Solutions will require the leadership, political will, expertise and financial resources of all sectors, public and private.
Abbott's long-term business strategy in HIV/AIDS has been to deploy our expertise, products, influence and other resources where they will make the greatest impact. Our response reflects an appropriate and sustainable balance between our commercial and philanthropic endeavors.
We are fighting HIV/AIDS on many fronts:
- Product Availability: Abbott markets its HIV medicines and diagnostic products to governments, health care institutions and other global organizations. In the world's poorest countries, Abbott distributes medicines and rapid HIV tests at no profit. Abbott is a member of the Accelerated Access Initiative, a cooperative endeavor of the United Nations and several pharmaceutical companies to expand access to HIV medicines in developing countries.
- Workplace Policy: Abbott's global workplace policy ensures confidentiality and protects HIV positive employees against discrimination, the main barrier to testing and treatment. Abbott is one of a handful of companies with a comprehensive AIDS-in-the-Workplace program in Africa, covering education and prevention, voluntary counseling, testing and treatment.
- Humanitarian Programs: Through our partnerships with local communities, nongovernmental organizations, faith-based groups and governments, Abbott's humanitarian programs in the developing world are helping to fight HIV/AIDS stigma, expand access to treatment, prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, strengthen health care infrastructure and provide care for orphans and vulnerable children.
- Policy Advocacy: Abbott strongly supports full funding of President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a proposed $15 billion in foreign assistance to address HIV prevention, treatment and care in developing countries. We continue to share information from our AIDS-related humanitarian programs with policymakers and other donors.
- Patents: Except in South Africa, Abbott has no patents on its HIV medicines in Africa. Abbott's HIV medicines are available in South Africa at no profit to Abbott through the Abbott Access program.
Read more about our HIV/AIDS efforts at HIV and Abbott.
We report regularly on our efforts in our Annual Report and Global Citizenship
Report.
Abbott Global AIDS Care.
