A trip to Africa
Tomorrow, we leave for an extended trip to Africa with the Recycled AIDS MEdicine Program. While I will keep a journal, blogging will be virtually impossible while I am away. I will post my journal here upon my return. But, in the meanwhile, I request your prayers as we travel with over six suitcases full of medications, and I offer this little blog post so you can know more about our trip.
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Anthony and I are on the Board of Directors of this agency in San Francisco composed of 5 volunteers who collect unused HIV medications and redistribute them to clinics in the developing world. Many people with HIV end of with large quantities of medications that go unused, mainly due to the medications not working in their particular case, or a change in regimen. Some medications are from folks who have died and the families donate them to us. Some medications are perfectly fine, but because of expiration dates can no longer be sold or used in the US in spite of the fact that they are still quite usable, in some cases for up to two years after they expire.
Anthony and I will visit two agencies in Zimbabwe to meet the people that our work directly benefits. We will help several doctors in our party at an open clinic in Harare for two days distributing medication and offering counseling to those we can. Many hundreds of people will show up and wait from the night before to be seen by a doctor. Many will have to be turned away because we cannot see everyone given the limited staff. For four days afterwards, we will stay at the Mother of Peace orphanage with the children whose parents have died as a result of HIV infection. Many of them are HIV positive.
The pharmaceutical industry in the US is maximized NOT for the health of the individual, but for the profit of the pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, there is an abundance of medication available in the US but at tremendously inflate prices. Because of this, and due to the high number of HIV cases in the developing world, medications are difficult to come by in places like Africa and South America because to offer them at cheaper prices does not benefit the pharmaceutical industry.
There is tremendous social stigma attached to HIV infection, particularly in the developing world. Many people risk losing their jobs, housing, and health care if it is discovered they have HIV. The clinics we supply, under the supervision of a medical staff, make sure that these medications are distributed in an equitable fashion.
RAMP has criteria for how the medications we donate are distributed:
1 - the agencies many not charge for the medication
2 - Social and economic status may not be used to determine who has access to the medications.
The medications we receive are donated anonymously in drop off boxes across the Bay Area. We then collect them and rigorously sort them into drugs which we may permissibly distribute and those we may not. Unusable drugs are incinerated and the others are sorted according to which clients need which medications. We currently supply a clinic and an orphanage in Zimbabwe, a clinic in Mexico City and another in Santiago, Chile. In addition, we supply medications to a women's health program in Uganda.
With an annual budget of $5000, we distribute as much medication as comparable agencies in the US with annual budgets in excess of $150,000. Last year, we gave away nearly $2 million in medications that would otherwise have been thrown away. We are an all volunteer agency and rely on couriers to get medications to our clients. We will be hand delivering several suitcases full of medications on our trip.
Brother Karekin
technorati tags:RAMP, AIDS, zimbabwe, harare, mutoko, motherofpeace, HIV