Laboratorios Viñas presents its CSR Report 2019, a year dedicated especially to women and children

“To be a benchmark for the national pharmaceutical industry and to expand our international presence, so as to be recognised as an innovative, solvent and socially committed company” This is the vision of Laboratorios Viñas and the engine that drives its actions within the scope of the Corporate Social Responsibility of this company with almost 110 years in business.

For years, Laboratorios Viñas has made every effort to guarantee access to healthcare and medicine for people who have problems obtaining it. Thanks to its collaboration with different bodies and non-profit organisations, this wish comes true year after year. Also, 2019 was a year in which special attention was given to two of the most vulnerable groups: women and children.

CSR objectives: improve health and care for the most vulnerable

Over the past year, the Corporate Social Responsibility of Laboratorios Viñas has focused on various initiatives in different parts of the world together with various non-governmental organisations and bodies:

a) HEALTHCARE, ESSENTIAL

These initiatives have mainly been implemented in Africa:

• Health aid in Cameroon, in collaboration with Semergen Solidaria, for the Hospital de Sainte Thérèse et de l’Enfant Jesus, private and managed by Teresian Missionaries. Thanks to this initiative, more than 500 people were treated and health training was offered to patients and hospital healthcare personnel in a country with a great shortage of doctors and a high prevalence of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.

• Protection of the Ethiopian child population together with the Prandi Foundation of the Spanish Society of Outpatient Paediatrics and Primary Care (SEPEAP). This collaboration, which started in 2018 has continued, this year awarding the project “Alegría con Gambo”, an initiative aimed at the rural area near Gambo (Oromia region), with the purpose of improving the health of children under 5, thanks to the formation of a primary healthcare network led by women.

• Improving maternal, neonatal and child health in Senegal with Amref Salud África. In 2019, 13 medical and awareness initiatives were implemented for the most vulnerable, facilitating access to and the provision of maternal, newborn and child health services to the Kolda region (Senegal). Thanks to an improvement in the ICT system and other resources, there was an increase in the quality of the health service and a decrease in mortality. The 10 medical campaigns benefited 2,320 people, including women and children under the age of 5, and the 3 awareness campaigns reached 1,200 people.

• Dermatological healthcare in Uganda. For the fifth consecutive year, the laboratory collaborated with the Piel Sana Foundation and the Spanish Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (AEDV). In 2019, the contribution was used to support the NGO Adelante Africa, which, together with other local organisations, works toward improving the quality of the country’s health. The award-winning plan includes initiatives from 2019 to 2021 to improve the level of and access to skin care health services in Kakumiro, a very economically depressed area of Uganda.

• Health and emergency initiatives in vulnerable countries together with Farmamundi. Members of the Emergency Fund of this NGO for 12 years, in 2019 115,000 people were helped through a project for ensuring the availability of medicines, food, hygiene kits and healthcare, in addition to promoting sex education for women and girls, in vulnerable countries such as Ecuador, Mozambique, Iraq, Yemen, Haiti, Uganda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine and Syria.

b) IMPROVING NUTRITION, THE KEY TO HEALTH

Laboratorios Viñas considers that fighting hunger and promoting healthy nutrition is also part of its responsibility as a company. Consequently, it has become involved in meeting basic needs such as access to food, incorporating initiatives aimed at employees:

• Support in the supply of food from the Food Bank Foundation. The collaboration began in 2011 to ensure the distribution of food to groups in poverty situations or at risk of social exclusion in Spain. In 2019, the contribution of the laboratory was used to buy high energy value products.

• Access to food and therapeutic products with UNHCR. For some years, Laboratorios Viñas has collaborated with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in its actions to support minors in South Sudan: in 2019, it supported the supply of food and therapeutic children’s products and the prevention of malnutrition and childhood anaemia and 1,870 pregnant and breastfeeding women, 1,400 families and more than 4,600 children between 6 months and 5 years benefited from this. In addition, last year it joined the project against malnutrition in the refugee camps in Ethiopia, helping almost 66,000 children to prevent and fight malnutrition with various initiatives.