IMA sends Medicine Boxes®, Safe Motherhood Kits™ to Pakistan

Friday, August 20, 2010

By Emily Esworthy/IMA

Torrential monsoons have been flooding Pakistan for three weeks, washing away homes, farmlands, livelihoods and even entire villages. According to AP, the United Nations estimates that as many as 20 million people are in urgent need of shelter, food and emergency care.

In response to the desperate need for medicines and supplies in Pakistan's flood zones, IMA World Health is sending 20 IMA Medicine Boxes® and 525 Safe Motherhood Kits™ to support the relief efforts of Church World Service (CWS) on the ground.

CWS, a member agency of IMA World Health, has response teams in Pakistan providing food and non-food relief items, emergency shelter and basic health services to people affected by the floods. CWS estimates that their teams will serve nearly 100,000 people, or 13,500 households, in three provinces.

Following a natural disaster like the Pakistan floods and the January earthquake in Haiti, increased occurrence of injury, infection and disease make health care both an urgent and long-term concern. Since 1960, IMA has responded to these needs by delivering critical medicines and supplies to clinics and medical teams in some of the world's neediest areas.

The IMA Medicine Box® contains enough essential medicine and supplies, including pain medications, antibiotics and first aid items, to treat up to 1,000 people for approximately two months in a typical rural clinic. In a disaster situation, supplies move more quickly as the needs are increased.

IMA's Safe Motherhood Kits™ contain all of the clean and sterile supplies necessary to provide a safe birth environment for expectant mothers, who face greater danger of infection and complications in the makeshift and unsanitary conditions following a natural disaster.