Merck Foundation CEO with Merck Foundation Alumni from Zambia
At Merck Foundation, we mark “World Hypertension Day” by improving access to quality and equitable Hypertension, Diabetes and Cardiovascular preventive care, which are all co-related, in Africa, Asia & Latin America. Together with our Ambassadors – The First Ladies of Africa, and partners like Ministries of Health, Medical Societies and Academia, we have till today provided more than 760 scholarships to doctors from 52 countries, of One-year PG Diploma and Two-year Master degree in Preventive Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Endocrinology and Obesity & Weight Management, and also a special 3 months Diabetes Mastercourse in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. These scholarships have been provided to the young doctors to form a strong platform of experts nationwide, and not only from capitals or big cities. In total, we provided more than 1810 scholarships to doctors from 52 countries in 42 critical and underserved medical specialties. Also, We recently launched new Fellowship Programs of One-year Clinical Cardiovascular care and One-year Clinical Diabetes, onsite training programs in India for African doctors. These programs will help us to further improve cardiovascular, Hypertension and Diabetes care in Africa and other developing countries.
In partnership with African First Ladies, we have released a children’s storybook and adapted animation Film “Mark’s Pressure” with an aim to focus on the causes of the early onset of hypertension and raising awareness about its early detection, prevention and management. Through our new animation film “Mark’s Pressure”, we want to encourage our communities to reduce salt, stop sugar, exercise regularly, eat healthy and stop smoking, this is the only way to prevent and manage hypertension and diabetes, which are predominant risk factors for the development of several serious complications and diseases.
Watch the “Mark’s Pressure” Animation Film here:
Click here to read “Mark’s Pressure” storybook:
Kind Regards,
Senator, Dr. Rasha Kelej,
CEO of Merck Foundation
