AmeriCares Receives Significant Medical Donation from Aventis Pasteur

AmeriCares Foundation
Monday, 12 June 2000

Tuberculosis test to be delivered to the indigent population in Los Angeles

AmeriCares, the international and national disaster relief organization, announced today that it has received 200,000 doses of the tuberculosis test, Tubersol® Tuberculin Purified Protein Derivative (Mantoux), from Aventis Pasteur, one of the world leaders in vaccine manufacturing.

Through the collaboration of Justiceville/Homeless-Dome Village, a homeless community in downtown Los Angeles, the TB tests will be consigned to two health care facilities in the Los Angeles area. The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, the largest provider of free heath care to the needy will receive 150,000 doses. The Community Health Foundation of East Los Angeles, Inc., the largest provider of primary medical and dental services to the homeless in California, will receive the balance.

Since 1995, AmeriCares has donated over 88,000 pounds of cleaning supplies and assorted food products to the Justiceville/Homeless-Dome Village valued at over $253,000. Upon receiving these donations, Justiceville distributes the majority of the products to various indigent communities throughout the Los Angeles area.

Aventis Pasteur, a world leader in vaccines with the broadest range of products, produces more than one billion doses of vaccines every year to immunize 400 million people around the world. For the past eight years Aventis's charitable donations have helped AmeriCares relief efforts around the world. This alliance has enabled AmeriCares to deliver over 50,000 pounds of life-saving vaccines valued over $40,000,000.

"AmeriCares is only able to achieve such remarkable results because of contributions like this from the corporate sector," says Robert Macauley. "AmeriCares is pleased to be able to support these neighborhood programs in the Los Angeles area."

"Tuberculosis does not recognize geographic boundaries," comments Dirk Sutherland, public health director at Aventis Pasteur. "Its resurgence has coincided with the rise of HIV and, in our lifetime, a billion people will contract it, 200 million will become sick and many millions will die. TB is the largest cause of death in the world from an infectious disease. The burden will be born unduly by the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. With this donation, we are glad to be able to help our most needy people gain access to the Tubersol® tuberculin skin test."

AmeriCares is a nonprofit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization, which provides immediate response to emergency medical needs—and supports long-term healthcare programs—for people around the world, irrespective of race, creed or political persuasion. Since its inception in 1982, AmeriCares has delivered over $2.5 billion in aid to more than 130 nations worldwide.

For more information, or to contact AmeriCares Foundation, see their website at: www.americares.org