Goals achieved for the third anniversary of the Global Alliance for Progress (GAP) in hemophilia project.
 The WFH’s GAP project has successfully completed its first three-year cycle and looks set to reach out to more countries. In the past three years, over 5,000 patients with hemophilia have been identified through GAP and more than 4,100hemophilia care professionals, patients, and families have received training or education.
The WFH helps GAP countries to develop new national programs for hemophilia care, training, and education. Significantly, five governments have signed formal agreements with the WFH to increase resources for hemophilia care and the purchase of treatment products in their countries.
Patient organizations in GAP countries also report that the project has motivated and unified their hemophilia communities. For example, the president of Mexico’s national hemophilia association, Martha Monteros de Hernandez, wrote that GAP had boosted cooperation amongst the country’s diverse and widely spread medical communities.
“GAP has provided our association with experiences from other countries on how to achieve maximum results,” she says. Those results include raising the number of identified patients from 2098 to 3218 over three years, the establishment of a new national registry, the implementation of national treatment guidelines, and successful lobbying for increased government purchases of factor concentrates.
The WFH launched GAP in April 2003 to close the gap in hemophilia care between developing and developed countries to greatly increase the diagnosis and treatment of people with hemophilia in up to 30 developing countries.
The first GAP members were Egypt, Georgia, Mexico, and the Philippines, followed by Armenia, Russia, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Jordan,and Lebanon.
“Since the start of GAP project in Egypt, dramatic improvements in hemophilia care have been encountered,” says Dr. Magdy El Ekiaby, head of the hemophilia treatment centre in Cairo’s Shabrawishi Hospital. Egypt’s achievements include the diagnosis of 551 new patients with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders. The country has also established a new hemophilia treatment centre in Alexandria, improved laboratory capabilities, and increased the availability of treatment products by 53 per cent. .
Georgia has raised the purchase of factor concentrates, by more than one-third, exceeding its original target. A regional distribution system is now in place and the national hemophilia program has been integrated into the healthcare system. The hemophilia care team has been expanded, 130 people with hemophilia have been diagnosed, and 22 patients with von Willebrand disease have been identified..
The Philippines has met its target of identifying 300 new patients, a 50 per cent increase. In addition, 20 patients have undergone successful radiosynevectomies, through a pilot project. The national health insurance plan now provides people with hemophilia partial reimbursement for blood products, and the Philippines Sweepstakes Charity Office provides free concentrates to patients in need.
“Enthusiasm and collaboration between government, healthcare providers, and patients have been evident throughout all GAP countries,” says WFH President, Mark Skinner.
“However we’re not resting on our laurels. The WFH is now reviewing GAP to improve the way it works and to ensure that more patients benefit from the project.”
New GAP supporters in 2006 includeWyeth, sponsor of the WFH Twinning Program. In addition, the Irish Haemophilia Society has pledged to contribute US$ 25,000 annually to GAP for the next three years as a declaration of “solidarity with the many thousands of persons with hemophilia who remain undiagnosed and untreated.”
Baxter, the founding sponsor, along with Bayer, the Jan Willem André de la Porte Family Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO), and ZLB Behring have also been supporters of GAP during its three-year history.
Claudia Black
WFH Program Director
For more information on GAP, contact Claudia Black at cblack@wfh.org.
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Last Updated April 2006
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