Coordination of drug donations: the GPHF emergency medicine program

Natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods or armed conflicts repeatedly result in an acute need for large quantities of medicines in the affected areas. In many cases, the urgently needed medicines can only be supplied by donations. In the past this has often led to mismatches between the medicines actually needed on the spot and those which are available as donations, so that in the worst case they remain unused in the port or must be wastefully disposed of.

In view of this problem,the GPHF set up the emergency medicine programin 1999. The aim of this initiative was to match the need for medicines communicated by aid organizations with the donations made by pharmaceutical companies so that only those medicines that were actually needed on the ground would in fact be donated.

In order to match drugs donations to the actual requirements, the GPHF designed a set of forms and made these available to aid organizations and the donors of medicines. They were prepared on the basis of the relevant WHO guidelines. All the information required by donors and recipients is covered. This ensures that a drug donation only reaches a disaster area if there is a corresponding concrete need, certified by an aid organization on the spot.

This process has proved its worth many times over, beginning with the GPHF’s first large-scale drugs donation coordination programs following the Kosovo war and the 1999 earthquake in Turkey. 

In order to heighten awareness of the need for appropriate medicines among all those involved and the public , the Gemeinsame Erklärung zur guten Arzneimittelspenden-Praxis in Deutschland (Joint declaration on good drugs practice in Germany) was made in 2000 on the initiative of the GPHF and signed by the major aid organizations. The project launched by the GPHF is being continued by the German association of research-based pharmaceutical companies (VFA).