WFH Project Update
Horizons in Hemophilia, June 2011
By Leigh Carpenter, RPh, Director of Pharmacy |
The pharmacy staff at HoG has been very busy working on the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) factor donation project. For the past several years, the HoG pharmacy has served as the contact and shipping/receiving partner for the WFH to accept donations of short-dated factor from the pharmaceutical companies in the United States.
Since January we have received and shipped out over 30 million units of factor to approximately 30 different countries. The donated factor has been mostly Refacto, followed by Kogenate and Feiba. The recipients of the medications have been extremely grateful.
Zeus is a 19-year-old man who received donated Factor VIII before having dental surgery. He says “I’m writing this letter to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you for providing the Factor VIII used in my dental surgery. It is really a big help on use, especially on me. Without your generosity, my tooth extraction would never be a success. Now I can smile to everyone with confidence considering that my teeth are all okey.” Read the complete letter from Zeus.
Agbar, a 34-year old man from Sudan had a similar experience waiting for factor before he could have much-needed knee surgery. He says “63 bottles of FVIII concentrate were used to cover surgery and the post-operative period. I was shown simple exercise to do at home. Now I am out of hospital and back to my village and at work. My leg is now almost normal. If not for the WFH donation I might still have been waiting.” Read the complete letter from Agbar.
These two letters reflect how gratifying it is for us to assist the WFH in getting factor to people who need it.