Sanofi Partners with Nigerian Government to Tackle Diseases

(3BL Media) August 15, 2012 - As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to provide quality health care system to Nigerians, Sanofi, a pharmaceutical company has partnered with the Federal Ministry of Health to eradicate communicable and non-communicable diseases in the country.

Speaking recently in Lagos, at the presentation of an award ceremony organised by the company in collaboration with Connecting Nurses, the Medical Manager of Sanofi, Mr. Frank Umeh, noted that in the area of non- communicable diseases, ignorance was one of the major problems.

“Many people don’t know what to do or how to access quality drugs when the need arises. A lot of people do not have access to trained health care professional whenever they fall sick. As a health care provider, we are training professionals on health care delivery and also making quality drugs available and affordable to the people. We are not just in Africa to sell drugs but to also contribute to the health care delivery in the country.”

Speaking on the awards, Umeh commended the awardees for their projects and plans to improve on health care services in Nigeria adding that Sanofi would partner with them to promote health services in Nigeria.

In his welcome address, the General Manager of the North East Africa, Mr. Paolo Agbotounou said that out of the 50 million nurses that contested for the award all over the world, two out of the 20 winners were from Nigeria.

“The two Nigerian winners fill me with praise for their outstanding achievement. As a leading pharmaceutical company we focused more on patients’ needs by offering them quality drugs and training for nurses in everywhere we operate.”

One of the awardees, Ibe Chinomaso, commended Sanofi for the great opportunity given to her for the award. Speaking on her project titled: “Lets Save Our Mothers,” she said that the project focused on the practical solutions to problems facing women in pregnancy.

“It is a great joy for me to be here this morning to find out that the vision I started as far back as when I was in school allowed me to know Sanofi Aventis and Connecting Nurses to actualise my dream.”

Another beneficiary of the award, Mr. Ekezie Oluchukwu expressed his gratitude to the company for the opportunity given by him through Connecting Nurses. He said that his project titled: “Home Care Nursing Services” was brought to the limelight by the rate of patients who kept coming to the hospital after being discharged. “I used the opportunity to do what has not been done in Nigeria before. Care nursing is an aspect of nursing that we neglected for many years. The death rate of non-communicable disease is what prompted me to go into home care nursing as part of my contribution to home care challenge.”

He, therefore, advised the government to introduce home care health services as part of health care system in the state.

About Sanofi
Sanofi, a global and diversified healthcare leader, discovers, develops and distributes therapeutic solutions focused on patients' needs. Sanofi has core strengths in the field of healthcare with seven growth platforms; diabetes solutions, human vaccine, innovation drugs, consumer healthcare, emerging markets, animal health and the new Genzyme. Sanofi is listed in Paris (EURONEXT: SAN) and in New York (NYSE: SNY).

Sanofi is the holding company of a consolidated group of subsidiaries and operates in the United States as Sanofi US, also referred to as sanofi-aventis U.S> LLC. For more information on Sanofi US, please visit http://www.sanofi.us or call 1-800-981-2491.