Providing Disaster and Humanitarian Relief
How Pfizer Responds
Disasters can strike at any time in any corner of the globe for many reasons. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Health Organization agree that the frequency and severity of humanitarian emergencies generated as the result of impacts of climate change (such as more severe storms, droughts, wild fires, disease outbreaks, population displacement) will continue to increase unless global carbon emissions are reduced and temperature rise is stabilized.
Recognizing the critical need in settings requiring relief and emergency humanitarian assistance, Pfizer has a three part approach: cash grants, product donations and other access solutions. Using this approach, Pfizer colleagues around the world work collaboratively with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Civil Service Organizations (CSOs), and health care providers (HCPs), to enable prevention and treatment of disease by making medicines and vaccines available to as many people as possible.
Cash Grants
In an effort to reach as many people as possible, we support a number of organizations working on providing relief and emergency humanitarian assistance. Over the past year, the Pfizer Foundation* and Pfizer Inc. have provided cash grants to various NGOs providing assistance during humanitarian emergencies, such as the refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East, the Zika outbreak, and Hurricane Matthew in Haiti and the United States.
Product Donations**
Pfizer believes that product donations play an important role in supporting defined public health programs and also urgent needs in relief and humanitarian emergencies. Most of Pfizer’s product donations, which are managed centrally within the company and focused on specific diseases or emergencies, are designed to address patient needs in a coordinated manner. These programs help provide underserved communities with access to important, potentially life-saving medicines and vaccines during times of significant challenge. Pfizer works through established NGO partners who are members of the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD) and who abide by the WHO Guidelines on Drug Donations to ensure that best practices are followed in areas like supply chain and adverse event reporting. These NGO partners have expertise in managing product donations in connection with humanitarian emergencies.
Pfizer’s approach to product donations is based on an expressed need. We work with our many partners to assess existing local government and NGO programs, so that any donations we make effectively support ongoing initiatives. Non-governmental organization partners provide general needs assessments, which permit us to respond to a country’s requests for aid, to maintain contact with organizations in the field, and to obtain the relevant information necessary to plan a medicine or vaccine donation.
Our response to a country’s needs involves a variety of different approaches, including providing our medicines and vaccines to medical missions, as well as pre-placing products so that needs may be met through a more immediate response, if relief and emergency humanitarian assistance is needed.
Pfizer donates a variety of products to assist with humanitarian emergencies, including essential health and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines. For example, in response to Hurricane Matthew and the cholera outbreak in Haiti, Pfizer donated antibiotics and sterile injectable medicines to various NGOs providing healthcare to affected populations. To support efforts to stem the Zika outbreak, Pfizer provided in-kind donations of up to 170,000 doses of long-acting contraceptive product for the Zika Contraception Access Network (Z-CAN) in Puerto Rico. Pfizer regularly donates products from our United States and European distribution centers to NGOs working to pre-position relief kits to respond to natural disasters and provide ongoing support for protracted humanitarian emergencies.
* The Pfizer Foundation is a charitable organization established by Pfizer, Inc. It is a separate legal entity from Pfizer, Inc. with distinct legal restrictions.
**The Pfizer Patient Assistance Program is a joint program of Pfizer Inc. and the Pfizer Patient Assistance Foundation™. The Pfizer Patient Assistance Foundation is a separate legal entity from Pfizer Inc. with distinct legal restrictions.