BRUNSWICK | A shipment of $330,000 badly needed antibiotics and other drugs is leaving MAP International bound for Nepal to help those injured in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake with more shipments planned, officials from the Christian relief organization said.
The 30 24-pound boxes will be headed to Nepal in an unusual way, first in a van up Interstates 95 and 16 and then aboard a commercial flight in the hands of the volunteer physicians who will use them in Nepal, said Kipp Branch, MAPs senior medicines officer.
This is one of those wild stories, Branch said.
The medicine will be loaded aboard a van provided by the Dan Vaden Chevrolet dealership in Brunswick and driven to the Bass Pro Shops store outside Atlanta where it will be picked up and driven to Atlanta, Branch said.
There a team of 15 physicians from Active Communities that Serve World Relief, or ACTSwr, will board a flight and each will check in two of the 24-pound boxes as luggage, Branch said.
Theyre going to tape two boxes together. Theyre going to carry it, he said.
That way, the doctors who will use the supplies will have them when they arrive in Nepal, he said.
Each of these boxes has $11,000 worth of medicines, heavy on antibiotics, he said.
There are also gloves for sanitary settings, vitamins and other supplies, Branch said.
That is atypical of MAP, which usually bundles boxes of medicines on shipping pallets and moves them by ship or air freight to get them into the hands of partner medical teams that arrive separately or sometimes already in the affected country. Branch said this is just an initial shipment, that MAP is preparing to ship more.
An emergency health kit is being procured from the Netherlands that has enough medicine to treat 10,000 people for up to three months and workers in Brunswick will be packing a shipping container that will be sent by ocean freight. Branch said that medicine may go by another means because of some humanitarian air flight opportunities.
But Rotary Club conventioneers will be paying the freight for some shipments, MAP President and CEO Steve Stirling said.
An amazing thing happened this weekend, said Stirling, who spoke to a gathering on Jekyll Island of Rotary Club District 6900 members from Atlanta and western Georgia.
Stirling said his talk kept being delayed, which he interpreted as the hand of G*d because the longer he waited the more was known about the disaster.
At the time, the death toll was 1,000, about a quarter of what was known Monday morning, and Stirling said he challenged the Rotarians to raise the $25,000 needed to ship a 20-foot container of $2.1 million in medicine for Nepal.
Country music star Larry Gatlin led the donations with the $150 in cash he had in his pocket, Stirling said.
He said, Whatever you guys dont raise, Ill fill the gap, Stirling said.
Rotarians apparently dont like leaving gaps to fill so by Sunday the conventioneers had donated $29,000, Stirling said.
The medicines will meet a great need because dangerous infections often set in from injuries like those suffered in earthquakes, he said.
Also, there are drugs to treat diarrhea, the primary killer of children in such disasters, Stirling said.
These are really life-saving drugs, he said.
The 20-foot container will follow the early air shipments to continue treating injured and sick Nepalese in the coming months, Stirling said.
Terry Dickson: (912) 264-0405
Source: http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2015-04-27/story/atlanta-area-doctors-board-flight-nepal-map-international-drugs
