Strengthening healthcare capabilities
The availability of medicines is not always the primary challenge. Access to healthcare also depends on having a functional healthcare system and the right allocation of resources to make sure that medicines are used appropriately as part of overall health management. For people in communities with limited healthcare infrastructure we partner with others to help strengthen healthcare frameworks and capabilities.
We have defined some common criteria to guide our commitment and ensure that all our partnerships centre on delivering meaningful and enduring benefit. The key principles are that our partnerships:
- lead to positive, measurable outcomes in underserved communities
- can be scaled up and potentially replicated to improve outcomes for a greater number of people
- deliver a sustainable framework that can ultimately be owned and managed locally, without the need for our support.
Such partnerships can also contribute to our business development, by enabling us to understand better the health needs of, and build important relationships in markets of the future.
Some examples of our work
Breast cancer is a fast emerging threat to women’s health in the developing world. Our ‘Phakamisa’ programme in South Africa and ‘Pambazuka’ programme in Kenya bring together different organisations to help raise breast cancer awareness, increase early diagnosis, and improve access to treatment and effective support networks.
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Our AstraZeneca Young Health Programme (YHP) is designed to help young people in need around the world deal with the health issues they face so they can improve their chances of living a better life. We are working with expert partners, Plan International and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to identify the needs in our local communities and to help address these needs with a combination of work on the ground, research and advocacy.
In 2007, AstraZeneca and the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) began a five-year partnership in Uganda to develop an integrated model for the management of malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB, the leading causes of ill health and death in the country.