Merck & Co., Inc. works in partnership with governments, community organisations, international agencies, private enterprises, NGOs and others to make significant improvements in healthcare delivery. Some examples of these initiatives are:

Working with the Government of Botswana and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Merck Company Foundation/Merck & Co., Inc. has been involved in the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP) since 2000. The partnership supports and enhances the government’s national response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic through a comprehensive approach to prevention, treatment, care and support.  The Merck Company Foundation and the Gates Foundation are each providing $56.5 million to the initiative.  In addition, Merck is donating its antiretroviral medicines to Botswana's national ARV treatment programme, known as "Masa" ("dawn").

Since it was launched, ACHAP has funded a wide range of projects aimed at helping to address HIV/AIDS in Botswana. This has included:

• Improving the effectiveness and availability of voluntary testing, referral and diagnostic services
• Supporting a condom distribution and marketing programme, including the installation of more than 10,500 condom dispensers providing free condoms throughout the country
• Providing small grants to fund community-based initiatives
• Building resource centres at hospitals and daycare facilities for orphans
• Establishing support and counselling services including faith-based services, pre- and post-test counselling and interventions targeting youth and other vulnerable groups
• Implementing awareness, knowledge and de-stigmatization campaigns through the national education and broadcast systems
• Providing funding for health care worker training, encompassing both theoretical and clinical training

Progress to Date

While success has not come overnight, progress to date is encouraging:

• As of April 2008, more than 100,000 patients are receiving ARV treatment, representing – at more than 85 percent – the highest ARV coverage rate in Africa.  When Masa began in 2002, less than 5 percent of those in need of ARV treatment received it.
• AIDS mortality rates have been cut in half.

Adherence to treatment is among the highest in the world.

 For further information on these initiatives click here to download the MSD Commitment to HIV/AIDS brochure.

In May 2005, the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China and Merck & Co., Inc. established the China-MSD HIV/AIDS Partnership, a public-private partnership for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in China. The Merck Company Foundation has committed US$30 million to support the project over the next five years.

One of the most significant initiatives undertaken by Merck to help improve access to medicines in developing countries is the Merck Mectizan^® Donation Programme. Established over 20 years ago, the Mectizan^® Donation Programme is the single largest, longest standing public/private partnership of its kind and is widely regarded as one of the most successful public-private health collaborations in the world.

In 1987, Merck announced that it would donate Mectizan^® (ivermectin), a medicine for the treatment of onchocerciasis, to all who needed it, for as long as needed. More commonly known as "river blindness," onchocerciasis is transmitted through the bite of black flies and can cause intense itching, disfiguring dermatitis, eye lesions and, over time, blindness. The disease is one of the leading causes of preventable blindness worldwide.

Mectizan^® relieves the agonizing itching that accompanies the disease, and halts progression towards blindness - two characteristics of the diseases that dramatically affect the quality and duration of life. With only one annual dose, Mectizan^® is well suited for distribution in remote areas by community health workers. It is the only well-tolerated drug known to halt the development of river blindness.

To ensure the appropriate infrastructure, distribution and support for the donation initiative, Merck established a unique, multisectoral partnership, involving the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and UNICEF, as well as ministries of health, non-governmental development organizations and local communities. In 1988, Merck established the Mectizan^® Donation Programme Secretariat, housed at the Taskforce for Child Survival and Development, to provide medical, technical and administrative oversight of the donation of Mectizan^®. Since the programme's inception, Merck has donated more than 2.1 billion tablets of Mectizan^® through the partnership, with more than 600 million treatments approved since 1987. The programme currently reaches more than 80 million people through river blindness programs in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East (Yemen) each year.

Today, the delivery system for Mectizan^® also serves as an avenue through which other health and social services have been introduced, such as vitamin A distribution, cataract identification, immunization campaigns, training programmes for community health workers and census-taking.

In 1998, the Merck Mectizan^® Donation Programme was extended to the prevention of lymphatic filariasis (LF), commonly referred to as elephantiasis, in African countries where the disease co-exists with river blindness. An estimated 300 million Africans are at risk, and another 40 million are infected by this disease. Approximatley 215 million treatments for LF have been approved, with nearly 50 million treatments approved in 2007 alone through Merck's work with the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis.

Merck has made a long-term commitment to donate as much of this medicine as necessary to treat river blindness and to prevent lymphatic filariasis in affected geographic areas. The goal is to eliminate both diseases as public health problems.

In November 2007, public health officials announced that transmission of river blindness had been halted in Colombia, marking the first time that the disease has been eliminated as a public health problem on a country-wide basis anywhere in the world.  The Ministry of Health in Colombia will initiate a three-year post-treatment surveillance period, after which WHO certification will occur. 

In June 2005, Program for Appropriate Technology (PATH), a non-profit global health organisation, announced a five year initiative to bring cervical cancer vaccines to developing countries.

PATH conducts programme research and demonstration projects in four developing world countries, to justify allocation of resources and to aid plans to integrate the new vaccines into existing health programmes.

Merck & Co., Inc. is one of the pharmaceutical partners involved. It has committed to providing its cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil, approved by the FDA in June 2006, to demonstration projects in developing countries.

Merck is partnering with PATH to conduct demonstration projects of Gardasil in Peru, Vietnam and India to support the acceleration of the availability of cervical cancer vaccines in the most impoverished nations. Approximately 35,000 adolescent girls will participate in the demonstration projects, which are designed to generate evidence for the public-sector introduction of HPV vaccines in low-resource settings, inform global advocacy efforts, and provide analyses that together help to accelerate access to the protective effects of HPV vaccines. PATH, in collaboration with Merck, started the projects in April 2007 and expects them to conclude by 2011.  Merck is also working with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to study Gardasil in underserved populations in India where one fourth of the entire world's cervical cancer deaths occur.  This makes cervical cancer the most common form of cancer for women in India.  The ICMR, in collaboration with Merck, began a trial in June 2008 with results expected in 2011.  In addition, Merck is conducting studies with Gardasil in special populations including HIV-positive men and women that may have relevance in the developing world.