As a global healthcare company, Merck believes it has a responsibility to help increase access to medicines, vaccines and quality healthcare worldwide.

In this effort, we are committed to discovering smart, sustainable ways to expand access, especially in parts of the world where there is limited or no healthcare infrastructure and resources.

Given the enormity of this challenge, we believe we can make the strongest contribution by working in partnership with others—governments, donors, patient organizations, healthcare professionals, nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions, multilateral organizations and others within the private sector. Through these partnerships, we provide our expertise, human and financial resources, and products to improve healthcare quality and capacity. Our support helps strengthen health provider training, health service delivery (including innovative ways to improve care for chronic diseases), patient education/empowerment, and community health awareness. We also aim to address underlying barriers to health, such as access to clean water and food.

We share program results and best practices that expand knowledge and help advance the healthcare field. Through our program collaborations, we are discovering better ways to improve human health outcomes for underserved populations.

Key initiatives include:

• The African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP) Since 2000, ACHAP has supported Botswana's national HIV/AIDS strategy to prevent new HIV infections and to reduce morbidity and mortality rates associated with HIV/AIDS. The comprehensive approach includes prevention, treatment, care, and support.
• China-MSD HIV/AIDS Partnership This program addresses HIV/AIDS in Liangshan Prefecture in Sichuan Province, China, establishing an effective and replicable model for delivering prevention, care, treatment, and support services.

BroadReach Institute for Training and Education (BRITE) - Management and Leadership Academy The Merck Company Foundation is supporting implementation of the BRITE Management and Leadership Academy (MLA) program in Zambia. The MLA program teaches critical management and leadership skills for health care professionals in order to build and strengthen the capacity of local health systems.

Merck Childhood Asthma Network (MCAN) With funding from The Merck Company Foundation, MCAN supports programs that help increase access to and improve the quality of pediatric asthma care by implementing evidence-based approaches to asthma management and by conducting quality improvement initiatives. The programs also advocate for and recommend policy changes while providing asthma education to patients, providers, and the public.

Millennium Villages Community Health Worker Program Our funding supports the implementation of the Earth Institute's Millennium Villages Community Health Worker Training Program, which promotes community health by cultivating a cadre of health workers across 14 sites in East and West Africa.

The Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes With funding from The Merck Company Foundation, Alliance program partners are working to decrease diabetes disparities and enhance the quality of health care among low-income, underserved adults in five communities across the United States.

The Merck Vaccine Network—Africa With our support, MVN-A programs work to improve childhood immunization coverage and increase the capacity of vaccination programs in Kenya, Mali, Uganda, and Zambia. This is done through collaborative partnerships that develop sustainable immunization management training programs.

African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) APOC was established in 1995 by the World Health Organization to control onchocerciasis (river blindness) in Africa using Merck's MECTIZAN^®(ivermectin), a broad-spectrum anti-parasitic medication that treats and prevents the spread of river blindness. In 2008, Merck committed $25 million over eight years to the World Bank in support of APOC's continued development of country-led river blindness efforts. APOC will run through 2015 and intends to treat more than 100 million people each year in 19 African countries, working to prevent more than 40,000 cases of blindness each year and eliminating transmission of the disease where feasible.

CARE USA - Bridging Health and Education Programs for Children The Merck Company Foundation is supporting a partnership with CARE USA and Save the Children to develop a package of services for young children and their families that concentrate on five areas of impact ("5x5 Model"): child development, health, nutrition, child protection, and economic empowerment. With a focus on caregivers and childcare settings in low-resource communities with high HIV-prevalence, these services will help to improve the quality of life and long-term developmental outcomes for orphans and vulnerable children.

Children's Inn The Children's Inn opened in 1990 at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with a contribution from Merck. Since then, the Inn has hosted more than 10,000 seriously ill children involved in treatment at the NIH. In 2009, The Merck Company Foundation pledged additional funds to support the establishment of a new transitional housing program-Woodmont House. Learn more.

Merck International Partnership Program

Launched in 2009, the International Partnership Program (MIPP), formerly known as the MSD Regional Strategic Grants Program provides regional autonomy in determining the giving priorities within the three geographic areas of Asia Pacific; Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa; and Latin America.

Each region develops its own philanthropy plan to guide the focus and implementation of the regional grant making, thus providing opportunities to build relationships with key stakeholders and address important health and social issues in these regions. The Office of Corporate Philanthropy works with the regions to concentrate its efforts on improving the health and well-being of people within emerging and developing markets.

Combined, the 2009 and 2010 grant cycles of MIPP provided 39 grant awards totaling about $4.5 million in 22 countries.

The funded projects address health-related issues such as health literacy, access to health care for vulnerable or underserved populations, health care disparities, disease awareness and prevention, and health promotion.

2010 grant awards by region:

• Latin America

  Stakeholder: Trustees of Phelps Stokes Fund—Health Leadership Development Initiative in support of Afro-Colomb ian health care professionals and leaders in the Pacific Coast Region (Colombia)*

  Stakeholder: Pan American Development Foundation—Support of "health brigades" comprising a broad array of health professionals who provide health promotion and disease prevention services, basic medical care, and surgical procedures for internally displaced people (Colombia)

  Stakeholder: Mexican Institute of Family and Population Research—Capacity building workshops to help professionalize and empower civil society organizations working in public health and health care (Mexico)

  Stakeholder: AC Akeke—Comprehensive sexuality education programs to prevent unintended teenage pregnancies and foster responsible sexual behavior (Venezuela)*

  Stakeholder: Fundacion Huesped—Leverage combined communication assets of a new union of Latin American broadcast media (Latin America Media Partnership) in response to HIV/AIDS, to challenge the AIDS-related stigma, and to help reduce the spread of HIV (Argentina)*

  Stakeholder: Instituto Vida Nova Integracao Social, Educacaoe Cidadania—Support of Instituto Vida Nova (IVA) programs to provide HIV/AIDS health and social support services, including peer counseling, for people living with HIV/AIDS (Brazil)*

  * Indicates multi-year grant award.

• Asia Pacific

  Stakeholder: Hyderabad Eye Institute—Training program for approximately 100-120 vision technicians to staff primary care delivery program (India)*

  Stakeholder: Real Medicine Foundation—Improving child nutrition and feeding practices and increasing access to malnutrition treatment services in Madhya Pradesh (India)*

  Stakeholder: AROGYA—School-based diabetes awareness and prevention program in several Delhi middle schools (India)

  Stakeholder: Philippine NGO Support Program—Enhancing access to health and development education and strengthening capacity of community health systems among the underserved (Philippines)*

  Stakeholder: Institute for Reproductive Health—Improving availability of health information and reproductive health services for youth in Multinlupa (Philippines)*

  Stakeholder: Mahidol University—Research study to understand women's reproductive health needs and barriers to access (Thailand)*

  * Indicates multi-year grant award"

• Central Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa

  Stakeholder: ZA NOVI DAN, Udruga—Health education program to promote prevention and early detection of cancer (Croatia)

  Stakeholder: NGO Diffraction—Implementation of national smoking cessation campaign (Croatia)

  Stakeholder: Social Innovation Foundation - Development of Eastern European Area—Development of strategy and action plan to improve the quality of health care and increase awareness of disease prevention (Hungary)

  Stakeholder: Israel AIDS Task Force—Programs to promote HIV awareness, prevention and access to treatment among Ethiopian immigrant community (Israel)

  Stakeholder: Lithuanian Osteoporosis Foundation—NGO network to raise awareness of osteoporosis and promote healthy lifestyles (Lithuania)*

  Stakeholder: Hospice Casa Sperantel—Campaign to improve access to quality palliative care for patients with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses (Romania)

  Stakeholder: Center for Free Elections and Democracy—Development of web site to promote wellness and disease prevention, focusing on nutrition and physical activity of youth ages 7-15 years (Serbia)

  Stakeholder: UPO Stop Hepatitis NGO—Education program to improve awareness, knowledge and skills among health professionals in preventing, diagnosing and treating Hepatitis C (Ukraine)

  * Indicates multi-year grant award"

Rx to Fight Hunger

This initiative enables organizations to develop, implement, and share innovative approaches for treating and preventing hunger and malnutrition in children, seniors, and families. Examples of Merck's hunger-related local and regional partnerships include:

• Sesame Workshop - "Food for Thought: Eating Well on a Budget"—The Merck Company Foundation is supporting the Sesame Workshop's "Food for Thought: Eating Well on a Budget" - a bilingual (English-Spanish) education outreach program designed to help low-income families, with children between the ages of two and eight, make food choices that are affordable, nutritious and set the foundation for lifelong healthy habits.
• Drexel School of Public Health—The Merck Company Foundation is funding a three-year project with Drexel (Pennsylvania) to develop and implement innovative approaches to treating and preventing child hunger and improving access to healthy food for low-income families in impoverished urban communities.
• Hospital Pantry Partnership of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey—Merck is providing a two-year grant to implement a pilot project that will provide food to pediatric hospital patients from food-insecure households. Partnering with Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and St. Michael's Hospital in Newark, the FoodBank plans to distribute up to 30 pounds of groceries weekly to each qualifying household.
• America's Grow A Row—Merck provided funding to support America's Grow A Row Community Produce Donation Garden in Pittstown, New Jersey, a productive garden that is used to donate fresh, healthy produce to feeding agencies.
• Meals on Wheels Association of America—Merck is providing funding to support solutions to malnutrition and rural hunger issues for seniors.
• Salvation Army—Merck's grant helped the Salvation Army expand its mobile feeding programs and increase the capacity of its Emergency Food Pantries.