MAP International 2022 Spring Newsletter

medicine for the world Our mission: To provide medicine and health supplies to those in need around the world so they might experience life to the fullest.

Spring 2022 | Volume 56

Your gift now goes further than ever before!

Thanks to what we here at MAP call the “multiplier effect”—achieved through a combination of careful stewardship and sound fiscal practices—we are able to amplify each gift our supporters make so that its value in donated medicine and health supplies is many times over the dollar amount itself.

This means that now we will be able to reach even more people with every dollar donated! And for the tens of millions of people in the developing world— many of whom are children—who die from diseases

that could have been prevented or treated with a few dollars’ worth of medicine, this could be a lifesaving difference.

In this newsletter, you will read stories of hope, healing and lives transformed. Each life saved, each person healed, each community transformed are testaments to God’s infinite mercy. Please know that your generosity and compassion are what make all of this work possible.

Pediatric antibiotics bring relief for two-year-old Fernando For most children in the U.S., strep throat, a pesky ear infection, or even a case of pneumonia can all be resolved with a quick visit to the pediatrician and a prescription for antibiotics.

But for children living in places like Sonoyta, Mexico, a hardscrabble town near the U.S. border that houses many families fleeing violence and desperate poverty, healthcare is an unaffordable luxury.

Without this option, he likely would have been treated for his symptoms and sent home or had to make do with taking a fraction of an adult’s antibiotic pill.

In a town where resources are extremely limited, finally having access to pediatric antibiotics is a literal godsend. With MAP’s help, now more children in Sonoyta will get life-changing medicine!

Fortunately, a MAP partner runs a monthly clinic staffed with volunteer medical teams.

All of the medications in the clinic’s small pharmacy are donated, and in the past, the selection has been limited enough that liquid antibiotics for children were not available. Thanks to MAP, this has recently changed.

For two-year-old Fernando, this couldn’t have come at a better time. When the little boy started feeling unwell, his parents waited expectantly for the next clinic day. When the doctors examined Fernando, they found that he had tonsillitis and would need antibiotics.

“MAP International provided us with children’s amoxicillin and helped us to be able to treat Fernando properly,” says clinic team member Danielle Briskey.

Heart surgery saves a life Hammed Afolabi and his family live at the airport in Ibadan, Nigeria. Hammed runs a three-wheel bicycle service to support his wife and three children. Like 95% of the rest of the people in Nigeria, the Afolabi family live without access to essential medical services.

So when Hammed had a life-threatening heart condition that would need surgery, his family faced an agonizing choice. But then they heard about a program that could help.

At First Cardiology Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, Hammed met with a medical team from the VOOM Foundation, a private international medical humanitarian organization that partners with MAP International and provides free open-heart surgeries to indigent patients in Nigeria through a network of strong partnerships.

Thanks to generous supporters and MAP International’s high-quality sutures, state-of-the-art heart monitors, and medications to care for Hammed during his hospital stay, he had open-heart surgery in September and was discharged from the hospital five days later. He is expected to fully recover.

The Afolabi family is not an isolated incident in Nigeria.

Many other families in the country are faced with similar decisions every day: do I seek medical care, or do I put food on the table?

“Thank you for all the support MAP has provided to our efforts,” says Shawn Andaya-Pulliam, Executive Director of the VOOM Foundation.

An end to suffering for Ugandan women One simple operation. For Ugandan women who are suffering in shame from constant, uncontrollable leaking of urine and feces after a traumatic birth injury, one surgery is all it would take to fix the problem.

But for women living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, one surgery is not so simple. There are precious few surgeons who can perform such an operation, and even if women could find a capable hospital, they simply can’t afford it.

A medical mystery is solved in El Salvador Natalia struggled terribly to find help for her mysterious symptoms.

She was experiencing joint and muscle pain and was extremely fatigued. At only 30 years old, she knew her symptoms weren’t normal.

After nearly a year of dealing with her troubling symptoms, Natalia finally found help from a visiting medical mission team that diagnosed her with lupus and gave her MAP-provided medicine to help treat her symptoms. Finally, with an official diagnosis, Natalia would be able to see a rheumatologist who could provide treatment for her chronic condition.

“MAP has consistently provided us with medications,” said Dr. Eva Gregory, the leader of the medical team. “We are very thankful for their services!”

The maternal mortality rate in Uganda is one of the highest in the world. According to the Fistula Foundation, an expectant mother in Uganda has a 1 in 47 chance of dying in childbirth. Those that survive often suffer obstetric fistula, and many suffer for years before receiving treatment.

These birth injuries not only cause embarrassing incontinence, but also result in the women being ostracized from their village because of their smell and abandoned by their husbands for delivering a dead infant.

But there is hope. The Kitovu Hospital in Uganda has been performing fistula repairs for women, free of charge. For the last 11 years, MAP has been providing the hospital with medical supplies, including sutures.

The results of the surgeries are lifechanging: Women leave the hospital with dignity renewed, health restored and spirits refreshed.

Senior Doctor Nabukalu Imelda Antony, Director of the Fistula Program at Kitovu Hospital, says, “We are grateful to you all for enabling us to continue the noble work of restoring health and hope, free to the desperate, vulnerable women who have suffered childbirth injuries with dreadful consequences.”

During their time in El Salvador Dr. Gregory’s team treated over 300 patients like Natalia, many of whom had been unable to get their regular medications for conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes during the pandemic.

Thanks to MAP, these patients were able to receive the care that they had been trying to live without for so long.

“The physicians we work with in El Salvador are very appreciative of the medications provided by MAP for our trips,” Dr. Gregory said.

Prenatal vitamins for a mother and her unborn child Dieuline is only 36 years old but has known enough sorrow for several lifetimes. She has lost four children, either through miscarriages or the babies dying shortly after birth. She does not know the reason for their deaths.

Dieuline and her husband have one surviving child. The family lives in a house made of sticks and clay with a tin roof. During the dry season, they walk three hours each way to get water.

So when she became pregnant again, she was determined to give her baby the best possible start in life. Dieuline had heard of a free clinic where she might get prenatal care.

When she arrived for her consultation, the missionary team was able to provide her with highquality prenatal vitamins donated

by MAP International.

In rural Haiti, where she lives, children are treasured. A Haitian Creole proverb says, “children are the wealth of the poor.”

Dieuline and her husband desperately want another child and they pray this baby will live.

She wants to express her heartfelt thanks to MAP supporters who

have donated the special vitamins because now, she says, she has “hope.”

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high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease and asthma in six African and South American countries.

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Thanks to the outstanding generosity of our supporters, the year-end 2021 Bringing Medicine to the World Matching Gift campaign smashed all records. This is the most successful match campaign in MAP’s history and we met our goal.

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Thanks to you, MAP’s year-end match campaign broke records!

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The money raised will be used to serve even more people in 2022 by:

• Providing more than 3.1 million treatments for chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes,

MAP Headquarters | 4700 Glynco Parkway | Brunswick, GA 31525 Global Health Office | 315 W. Ponce de Leon Ave, Suite 815 | Decatur, GA 30030 1.800.225.8550 | map.org

• Treating more than 200,000 children with a full course of pediatric antibiotics.

• Reaching more than 1.4 million pregnant women with critical prenatal vitamins.

“Our supporters are the reason we are able to get lifesaving medicine and health supplies to those who need them, “ says Steve Stirling, President and CEO of MAP International. “We are blessed beyond measure to have a family of compassionate, caring supporters who truly want to bring health and hope to some of the world’s poorest, most forgotten people and communities.”

Because of you.

Today, smiles are chasing away tears for so many in forgotten places who now have health and hope because of your unwavering generosity.

We dedicate our Spring 2022 Newsletter to our faithful supporters who make it possible for MAP International to carry out our calling to provide lifesaving medicines and health supplies for a world in desperate need.

We hope you’ve been encouraged by what you’ve read. Please know, a gift in any amount will help ensure we have even more inspiring stories of redemption to share.

Give today!