PRNewswire - December 5, 2003

The GSK grant was announced by Chris Viehbacher, President of GSK's US Pharmaceuticals business, during a trip to Africa with US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, where 30 million people are believed to be infected with HIV/AIDS, the disease is tearing apart the foundations of society.

Infected mothers transmit the disease to their babies during delivery and subsequent breastfeeding, resulting in more than 1,600 new infant infections daily. Infected parents without access to HIV/AIDS medicines leave behind whole families of orphans, amounting to as many as 15 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa who have been orphaned by the disease, according to United Nation's estimates. Those remaining struggle to support the fragments of their families in an increasingly impossible economic situation.

The GSK grant seeks to improve the standard of medical care provided to families, while also promoting community awareness and education about HIV/AIDS. HIV testing and counseling will begin during prenatal care.

Infected mothers will begin antiretroviral therapy before birth to reduce the rate of transmission of the disease to their child, either during birth or through breastfeeding. Both mothers and infected fathers will continue HIV drug therapy to maintain their health over time and enable them to support their family for as long as possible. Ongoing support will be provided to families through community treatment experts - or "Mothers Helpers" - who will deliver HIV therapy to patients and monitor their treatment while also providing health education and nutritional support.

The success of this approach has already been demonstrated through a pilot program at St. Gabriel's Hospital in the Lilongwe district of Malawi. Now in its third year, the St. Gabriel's project has established its Mother to Child Transmission Program, and is working toward expanding the program to treat 450 new mothers and their infected spouses over the next three years. The GSK grant will support that effort, and enable expansion of the program to the Workers Treatment Center in Kampala, Uganda, with a goal of treating 1,000 new patients.

The GSK grant will be administered through the Children's AIDS Fund, a Washington, DC-based organization that has over 10 years experience working in Africa, including support for an AIDS orphanage established by Ugandan First Lady, Mrs. Museveni.

"We hope this GSK grant will help support care for the whole family," Chris Viehbacher said. "If an infected mother is not cared for, she risks infecting her baby with HIV. If the infected father - the main bread-winner of the family - is not cared for, the mother and child are more vulnerable. But if the family's HIV health is addressed, both parents will live longer so that the child will be cared for."

This latest grant is part of GSK's ongoing support for community-based programs that target diseases of the developing world. Since 2000, the company has helped fund an HIV/AIDS clinic in the Masoyi tribal area of Mpumalanga, South Africa. The clinic is part of a three-year, $450,000 GSK program to provide a quality continuum of care to all those in the region who are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

Since 1992, GSK has invested over $60 million through the company's Positive Action program, partnering with individuals, community groups, healthcare providers, governments, international agencies and others to provide more effective HIV prevention, education, enhanced care and support for people living with, or affected by HIV/AIDS. For example, working with the Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) in Ethiopia, Togo and Kenya, Positive Action is supporting workshops, research and technical assistance to enable CAFS to improve the capabilities, capacities and effectiveness of organizations and individuals impacted by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.

Positive Action is also supporting a three-year program in Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana and Vietnam with the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) to research how to overcome stigma and discrimination, which is known to be a major barrier to accessing care and treatment for communities affected by HIV/AIDS.

On another front, the GSK African Malaria Partnership - the company's malaria community partnership program - aims to develop effective malaria control behaviors in African communities. The company's $1.5 million in grants are shared between three programs over three years, and are designed to support wider-scale implementation of successful pilot programs, rather than encouraging new pilot programs. This "kick-start" funding allows innovative and effective concepts to become established and to demonstrate further success while also attracting additional, third party funding.

In what is the company's largest single donation program, GSK has been donating albendazole, an anti-parasitic drug, since 1997 to an international coalition that is working to eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (or elephantiasis), a disease caused by parasitic worms that permanently damage the human lymphatic and renal systems. The hope is that GSK's 20-year, $1 billion commitment will help save 1.2 billion at-risk people in 80 countries from a lifetime of disability caused by this disfiguring disease.

In addition to its support for these and other community-based programs, GSK also focuses its developing country initiatives in two other areas: sustainable, preferential pricing for its medicines, and continued research into better treatments for diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world.

GSK continues to reduce the price of its HIV/AIDS medicines, with the latest price decrease in October 2003 lowering Combivir (zidovudine + lamivudine), a cornerstone of AIDS therapy in developing countries, to $0.65 a day. The company's vaccines and anti-malarial medicines are also made available to developing countries at preferential prices.

GSK is currently testing vaccines against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and has dedicated a science facility in Tres Cantos, Spain, as a center for research into developing country diseases.

GlaxoSmithKline - one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies - is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. For further information on GSK programs, please visit http://www.gsk.com.

SOURCE GlaxoSmithKline

Web Site: http://www.gsk.com

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