Alliance One donates K21 million worth of PPEs to PHIM
The Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM) says continuous availability of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for medical facilities plays a crucial role when conducting laboratory tests of different diseases including the corona virus that causes Covid-19.
PHIM’s Head of National HIV Reference Laboratory Dr. Bernard Mvula made the remarks when he was receiving a donation of various personal protective items worth over K21 million from Alliance One Tobacco Malawi.
The donated items include 1000 cartons of disposable surgical face masks, 1000 cartons of disposable gowns, 800 cartons of disposable gloves, 500 five-litre bottles of hand sanitizers as well as 500 goggles among others.
According to Mvula, the continuous availability of personal protective helps officers conducting different medical based tests and research in the five laboratories that are at this institution particularly during this period of Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are very grateful to Alliance One Tobacco for making this donation as it will go a long way in helping our staff here to be well protected when doing their routine work of sample technological testing and analysis in the five labs that are here especially during the analysis of Covid-19 tests,” said Mvula.
He further disclosed that the centre has been running short of adequate protective equipment.
In his remarks, Director of Human Resources for Alliance One Tobacco Malawi Emmanuel Banda said his company donated the items to PHIM as an acknowledgement of the crucial role the centre is playing through its laboratory-based expertise which goes a long way in combating the spread of various diseases in the country including the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As a corporate responsible organization, we decided to donate these items to our colleagues here at PHIM because we also wanted to take part in the actual fight against this Covid-19 pandemic as part of our corporate social responsibility program,” Banda said.
Alliance One Tobacco Malawi always focuses at complimenting government’s efforts in improving the living standards of people in the country through various initiatives in different local sectors including health, according to Banda.
The company also made a similar donation in December last year when it donated 20,000 surgical face masks and various infrared thermometers to 14 rural based health centres.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most local medical based facilities including PHIM are over stretched and therefore struggling to provide adequate personal protective items, an observation that made the company to donate the items especially for the frontline health workers to ensure that they are adequately prepared and protected.
“We believe that this donation will help officers here at PHIM to work effectively and achieve greater goals in as far as this centre’s activities are concerned especially whenever they are conducting routine laboratory tests and research which would go a long way in the fight against various communicable diseases in the country,” he said.
According to Banda, apart from the health sector, Alliance One Tobacco’s corporate social responsibility program also focuses on some community-based sustainability initiatives such as environmental conservation management, social-welfare, water and sanitation and education among others.
PHIM was established in 2013 by the government of Malawi with a purpose of providing leadership in disease surveillance, research, prevention and control as well as generate evidence that informs policy and practice in public health service delivery.
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