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by Nancy Koziol
Medical supplies and equipment will arrive in Angola on a Boeing 777-200ER.
The term shipping usually conjures an image of a boat on the water. And that is how MedShare containers filled with much-needed medical supplies and equipment typically reach their destinations – by ship. Next month, however, MedShare will send a 40-foot container to the Republic of Angola by airplane.
This exciting new development is a collaboration between the Angolan Ambassador to the U.S. Josefina Pitra Diakité, the Ministry of Health in Angola, Boeing, TAAG Angola Airlines, and MedShare. “TAAG Angola Airlines has provided us with the opportunity to send our first shipment of medical supplies and equipment by airplane," noted MedShare International CEO and Co-Founder A.B. Short. “We hope that this milestone in our history can be repeated in the future, as we strive to reach more places that are normally inaccessible or where freight costs are very high.”
This model for public-private partnership is advocated by the World Economic Forum and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) as a means of increasing aid around the world to those most in need. The partnership between MedShare and Boeing for more rapid global distribution of medical supplies has the potential to expand to additional countries. According to Nell Diallo, MedShare’s Executive Director-Southeastern Region, “Our proposal to Boeing to ship medical supplies to countries where they are delivering new aircraft was immediately accepted and Angola is the first test for the Medshare-Boeing-TAAG Airlines partnership.” Angola ‘s healthcare system faces many dire challenges, especially preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
Ambassador Diakité will visit MedShare next month and hopes to be able to travel to Seattle, where the MedShare product from Atlanta waits to take flight, so she can express her appreciation in person. I hope she can — it’s history in the making.
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Shipment Update
During the month of December, MedShare International shipped containers filled
with vital medical supplies and equipment to healthcare institutions in
different countries. The recipients were:
- Haiti
St. Basil's Clinic and Providence Hospital
- Sierra Leone
Koidu Government Hospital
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
ONATRA Hospital
- Ethiopia
Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative
- Liberia
John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital (and others; 2 containers)
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
Polyclinique de SNEL, Gombe, Kinshasa
- Ethiopia
CURE Ethiopia Children’s Hospital
- Ghana
University of Cape Coast Hospital
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mwadingusha Hospital
- Uganda
St. Joseph's Hospital in Kitgum
- Uganda
Jinja Hospital
- El Salvador
Kimberly-Clark’s Humanitarian Health Program
- Dominican Republic
Hospital Infantil Dr. Robert Reid Cabral
- Tanzania
Iringa Hospital
- Panama
Hospital del Niño, Panama City
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