We have an innovative and strategic partnership with GSK that is combining the two organisations’ global expertise, skills and energy to tackle the ambitious goal of helping to save one million children’s lives.
Together we are finding new ways to help reduce child mortality. For a third year, our partnership was voted as the “most admired” corporate partnership in the C&E Barometer’s survey of businesses and NGOs.
5.9 million children under the age of five died in 2015, the majority from preventable causes. In the last ten years significant progress has been made globally in reducing the rate of child deaths, however more needs to be done to speed up this reduction and to prevent children dying unnecessarily.
Our partnership is ambitious, and goes well beyond the traditional charity corporate fundraising model. At GSK, the partnership touches almost all areas of the business, using expertise in R&D, immunisation, and supply chain logistics to help save children’s lives.
Our on the ground presence and expertise in child survival helps provide a local perspective on child mortality to help the partnership reach some of the most vulnerable children with life-saving interventions.
Our partnership mission of helping to save the lives of one million children, by tackling preventable under five mortality, aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals - specifically under Goal 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing).
With the large global footprint of both GSK and Save the Children, the partnership intends to scale up and replicate its successes for the benefit of communities most in need. To date, we have directly reached 2.8 million children in 45 countries.
Together we are:
- Researching and developing innovative child-friendly medicines to reduce child and infant deaths
- Widening vaccination coverage to reduce the number of child deaths in the hardest to reach communities
- Increasing investment in the training, reach and scope of health workers in the poorest communities to help reduce the number of children dying from preventable diseases
- Helping children affected by disasters or humanitarian crises
- Advocating at local and global levels for stronger child health policies
Responding to Disasters and Humanitarian Crises
During 2015, the global partnership created a step change in the speed at which we respond and help our emergency response to crises throughout the world.
An example of this the Emergency Health Unit, formed by Save the Children and seed funded by GSK, which is getting help to wherever it’s needed. Within just 72 hours a team of specialist health workers can be on the ground delivering basic healthcare to save children’s lives.
Since 2013 over 300,000 children have been helped by this partnership during and after emergencies and humanitarian crises.
Research and Development Success
Innovation is at the heart of the partnership demonstrated by the commitment to the research and development of medicines to help save the lives of mothers and babies in developing countries.
The research and development work conducted by the partnership has developed a new gel in a sachet which is a formulation of chlorhexidine (CHX), an antiseptic commonly used in mouthwash, for the prevention of neonatal sepsis - a bacterial blood stream infection that kills 400,000 newborns a year.
CHX is listed as one of the WHO’s Essential Medicines and prior to the partnership, GSK had begun to explore its reformulation to help with umbilical cord care and prevent infection.
Once the two organisations started working together, we were able to harness in-country expertise and insights gained from research to advise on how this new formulation could be made accessible to mothers and babies in the hardest to reach areas. So far, over 30,000 newborns in Bungoma County, Kenya, have had access to the new chlorhexidine gel.
GSK has committed to making details of the new formulation and quality specifications available to other manufactures, in addition to making the medicine available on a ‘not-for-profit’ pricing basis.
Putting in place sustainable solutions is a cornerstone of the partnership’s vision and this breakthrough will create transformative improvements in healthcare for mothers and babies.
Last updated January 2019