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Global Compact International Yearbook 2013
WHO and Sanofi:
A Public-Private
Partnership to Save Lives
sanofi
For Sanofi, as a global healthcare partner, improving access to healthcare for the most dis-
advantaged patients is pivotal to its corporate social responsibility approach. At the core of
this commitment is the long-term partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) to
control a group of debilitating infectious diseases, called “neglected tropical diseases,” which
affect mostly poor people in developing countries. Since the partnership began, in 2001,
more than 20 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have been screened for sleeping sickness,
and more than 170,000 patients have received free treatment for what is a fatal disease, if
left untreated. This partnership has put the elimination of sleeping sickness within reach –
a prospect that was unthinkable a decade ago.
By Benedict Blayney and Pierre-Guillaume Harscouët, Sanofi
Dr. Pere Simarro, WHO, examining
slides under the microscope
for sleeping sickness parasites