LIFE SAVING PRESCRIPTIONS FOR HEALTH….

An essential part of medical relief programs is making life-saving pharmaceuticals available to communities that otherwise would do without, be they in a developing country, an American inner city or a rural poverty area. The consequences of such shortages can be devastating.

Operation USA thanks the following generous partners who are saving the lives of North African women, the vision of 450,000 children throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America and helping hundreds of clinics at home and abroad meet the ever-demanding needs of their communities. The following items from corporate and nonprofit agencies are worth $4.6 million.

AstraZeneca has twice gifted Operation USA’s supply program in the last two months. Over 1.3 million doses of Nolvadex (tamoxifen), which will entirely meet the yearly national need for this breast cancer-fighting drug in Morocco, is being shipped to the Ministry of Health of Morocco next week. In March, AstraZenca also sent the blood pressure medication, Plendil (felodipine), to nonprofit clinics throughout Louisiana and Mississippi.

Ohm Laboratories provided the same Gulf Coast clinics 350,000 doses of the over-the-counter medication, Nuprin Allergy (loratadine).

Leiner Health Products also packaged exclusively for Operation USA, therapeutic strength Vitamin A capsules, which need to be given only twice a year to save a child’s eyesight. The 900,000 doses will prevent nutrition-related blindness in 450,000 children in over a dozen countries. The company has also recently donated 780,000 doses of the popular pain-reliever and anti-inflammatory, Naproxen.

Heart To Heart International, a partner agency in Kansas, provided an urgently needed chronic care medication with a donation of 5,000 vials of insulin, to nonprofit clinics serving the victims of last year’s hurricanes. Since the start of our fiscal year in July, 2005, the agency has donated over $846,000 worth of medications through Operation USA to those in need.

Brother’s Brother Foundation, a long-time partner agency in Pennsylvania, recently donated 2,500 bottles of the powerful antibiotic, Lorabid, for our programs supporting U.S. nonprofit clinics on the Gulf Coast and throughout California. The Foundation in the last ten months has donated $6.9 million in pharmaceuticals to both our domestic and international programs.