The Fondation Pierre Fabre’s action in podcasts
A story of true commitment
As the Fondation Pierre Fabre celebrates its 20th anniversary, it relives its history in podcasts.
The Foundation team, partners and experts take turns at the microphone to lead listeners through two decades of initiatives in the field, helping people in the Global South have better access to quality medicines and health care. Six podcasts look back on the Foundation’s origins and its ever-expanding work in key areas of intervention.
In 1995, counterfeit meningitis vaccines were administered to local populations in Niger during an epidemic of the disease. Pierre Fabre was in Niger at this time and personally observed the ineffectiveness of these vaccines. The event drove his decision to devote his energies and resources to reducing the inequities between the Global North and South. In the first episode, Fondation Pierre Fabre Chairman Pierre-Yves Revol and Director General Béatrice Garrette discuss the origins of Pierre Fabre’s commitment and what led this man, two decades ago, to establish a Foundation with a distinctive status in France and an explicit realm of intervention.
The second instalment in this history of Fondation Pierre Fabre retraces its commitment to the training of drugs specialists; an essential link in the chain of combatting counterfeit medicines and facilitating access to high-quality medicines in the countries of the Global South. Let’s hear what Professors Jean Cros of the Faculty of Pharmacy in Toulouse and Yao Potchoo of the University of Lomé Faculty of Pharmacy have to tell us about their committed involvement.
For Pierre Fabre, the relationship between medications and healthcare was clear and, in the early 2000s, he worked to develop a new area of intervention for the Foundation: access to quality healthcare. This third podcast takes us back to the origins of this intervention and to the heart of two programmes – one in Lebanon, the other in the Democratic Republic of Congo – that are emblematic of the Foundation’s commitment. With Véronique Teyssié, Programme Manager for the Fondation Pierre Fabre, Paul Saghbini, Executive Administrator and Hospitaller for the Order of Malta in Lebanon, and Christine Amisi, Director of the Panzi Hospital in the DRC
Sickle-cell disease is a genetic blood disease that affects 250,000 newborns annually in sub-Saharan Africa. If left untreated, half of children with the disease die before the age of five. Since 2006, the Foundation has made fighting sickle-cell disease one of its priorities. In this podcast, we will hear from Pr. Gil Tchernia, a haematologist, Pr. Marc Gentilini, a specialist in infectious and tropical diseases – both members of the Foundation’s Scientific Committee –, and Pr. Dapa Diallo, haematologist and Director of the Sickle-cell Disease Research and Control Center of Bamako, Mali.
In the absence of diagnosis and specialist care, skin diseases that are often benign at the outset have the potential to develop into worrying clinical conditions. But with only one dermatologist on average for between 350,000 and 1 million people in West Africa, caring for skin diseases remains a very real challenge, especially in rural areas. In our 5th podcast, we hear from Professor Ousmane Faye, Director of the Bamako Dermatology Hospital, Mali, and Lalla Aïcha Diakité, Chair of the albinism charity Solidarité pour l’Insertion des Albinos du Mali (SIAM)… Both are committed Fondation Pierre Fabre partners.
Episode 6 : 2018, delivering eHealth solutions
eHealth technologies make it possible to overcome some of the economic, geographic and social barriers to healthcare access. Fondation Pierre Fabre sees them as a solution for the future, and in 2015 set up the Global South eHealth Observatory to facilitate the emergence of the most promising projects and transform access to healthcare in Africa and Asia. Let’s look back now on its initiatives in this field with insights from Gilles Babinet, the French government’s Digital Champion at the European Commission and member of the Observatory’s expert group, Professor Fode Abass Cissé, eHealth Observatory award winner in 2018, and Professor Cheick Oumar Bagayoko, Member of the Global South eHealth Observatory expert group and coordinator of the eHealth Inter-University Diploma course initiated by Fondation Pierre Fabre.