 Since 1996, the WFH Humanitarian Aid Program has been crucial to many people with hemophilia around the world, especially during emergencies.
Using its network of volunteers, national hemophilia organizations, and medical professionals in 107 countries, the WFH has been able to respond quickly to many urgent demands for clotting factor concentrates.
An example was the Afghanistan conflict in 2002, where the WFH helped Afghani patients in the country, as well as refugees who fled to neighboring Iran and Pakistan. One of them was 17-year-old Shikeb, who needed clotting factor concentrate to save his life after surgery.
The WFH also sent treatment products to Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami. More recently, the WFH was among the first organizations to send humanitarian aid to north Pakistan, devastated by last year’s earthquake.
From modest beginnings the program has grown tremendously, to make the WFH the world’s largest supply channel of donated hemophilia treatment products. Since January 2004, we have distributed a record-breaking 67 million units of factor, valued at more than US $62 million, to 56 countries.
Behind these figures are many touching accounts sent to the WFH. “We were able to save Khaled’s life,“ wrote Dr. Magdy El Ekiaby, who used a 40,000 unit product donation for one of his young patients in Cairo. From Iran came a similar story about six-year-old Nour Ali, who needed a hip operation.
A delighted Zijad wrote from Bosnia that his nine-year-old son, Mirza recovered from serious illness in hospital with the help of factor IX concentrate. And in Cuba, young Dairon was saved by a factor VIII donation.
A Chinese patient, named Song, in the southern city of Zhuhai needed emergency treatment for internal bleeding and abdominal problems that required major surgery. Donated factor product distributed through the local patient association saved his life.
The Malashenko family in Belarus also had urgent need of the treatment supplied through the WFH: “We gratefully thank you for the recombinant products we received. They helped our children with their problems.”
The WFH receives donated products from product manufacturers, treatment centres, and homecare companies. It then sends all available products for distribution through registered hemophilia treatment centres or recognized national hemophilia organizations.
Most donations are secured and distributed in collaboration with WFH USA and the invaluable assistance of Hemophilia of Georgia, a not-for-profit organization in the United States.
“Distribution of treatment products represents more than short-term humanitarian aid,” says Claudia Black, WFH Program Director. “The donations also support efforts by the WFH and national hemophilia organizations to lobby governments for ongoing purchases of these products and sustainable hemophilia care."
“After 10 years, we can look back on many lives saved or improved. With the right support, we hope to help even more people over the next 10 years.”
Thank you to our donors Baxter, Bayer, Wyeth, and ZLB Behring for their generous donations.
For more information about WFH humanitarian aid contact: ahaffar@wfh.org
What is Humanitarian Aid
Article, May 2005: ‘Donated factor saved my leg’
Last Updated June 2006 |
