AsianScientist (May 18, 2015) – As a member of the global Roll Back Malaria (RBM) program, Guilin Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. organized overseas teams in multiple countries of Africa to actively participate in World Malaria Day celebrations.
As part of the company’s Malaria Education Program in Tanzania, Guilin Pharma partnered up with National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) to produce a popular science film, “The Fight Against Malaria. What Can We Do?” The film was launched by Mr. Saidi M. Sadiki, the executive officer of Tanzania’s capital city Dar es Salaam.
The four minute popular science film is jointly produced by Guilin Pharma and the Malaria Prevention & Treatment Committee under the Tanzania Ministry of Health, with the aim to propagating knowledge of malaria prevention among children and local communities, especially the susceptible population’s self-protection awareness. The animated film told a story from the perspective of an eight year-old African boy, Baraka.
The film won praise from officers of the Anti-Malaria Committee under the Tanzania Ministry of Health, local medical and public health professionals, community workers and hundreds of primary school students present. A director of a local maternity hospital contacted the Guilin Pharma staff, expressing hope for the early introduction of the program to her hospital system:
“This film is exactly what I’ve been looking for all the time. I hope to introduce it to pregnant women during their waiting for treatment, so that they can learn basic knowledge about self-protection and protection for their families.”
This is the second public welfare project against malaria launched by Guilin Pharma and their first popular science effort. In addition to Tanzania, the company will release the film in six English-speaking countries in Africa, including Uganda and Kenya, as well as 17 French-speaking countries, including Cote d’ivoire and Cameroon within this year.
French and Swahili versions of the film are planned to be released in May 2015, along with brochures printed in the three languages to be distributed through schools, communities and medical institutions with the help of NMCP in different countries.
Although the work of malaria prevention and control since 2000 has been making progress and the situation of malaria epidemics has been alleviated in many regions all over the world, more than 500,000 people die from the disease each year, even though the disease is preventable.
As the world’s only supplier providing artesunate (a frontline emergency medicine against severe malaria) for injection in accordance with international quality certification, Guilin Pharma has been devoted to raising public awareness of malaria prevention and reducing incidences of malaria, which has become the company’s commitment to Africa as well as part of its social responsibility.
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Source: Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical; Photo: John Tann/Flickr/CC.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
