Mondial Assistance

MASSIVEGOOD launches in Spain: a first in Europe...

MASSIVEGOOD, an innovative new initiative to raise funds for global health through travel, is live in Spain. As of today, leisure travelers in Spain will be able to “click” on MASSIVEGOOD when they book travel reservations and give a €2 “micro-contribution” to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and to improve maternal and child health in the developing world.

Funds will be distributed to UNITAID, an innovative funding mechanism for the purchase of drugs that has already saved millions of lives by lowering the price and increasing the availability of key treatments in developing countries.

Spain will be the second country in the world to launch MASSIVEGOOD, which was launched in the United States at the United Nations. On March 4th 2010, former US President Bill Clinton joined UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to be the first to “click” on MASSIVEGOOD, in the presence of major health advocates and dignitaries.

• Download the press release as a PDF (38 Kb)

...and kicks-off corporate donation programme enabling companies

Companies now, also have an easy way to demonstrate commitment to global health with the launch of MASSIVEGOOD’s corporate program, which lets them integrate a simple donation solution into their corporate travel systems.

MASSIVEGOOD corporate was unveiled on June the 8th at the annual conference of the Global Business Coalition for HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis (GBC) in Washington, DC. This year, the GBC will award special honors to Condoleezza Rice, Former US Secretary of State, the National Basketball Association, among others, and feature MASSIVEGOOD as an initiative that can add new meaning to business travel.

Aside of the support also from the Travel and Tourism industry in Spain, giants such as Mondial Assistance, the World Travel & Tourism Council, Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport, Accor Hotels, American Express Business Travel, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Voyageurs du Monde, Club Med, Travel Corporation, BCD Travel, Travelocity, Delta Airlines, PhoCusWright, ASTA, and Global Business Coalition on HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria already support MASSIVEGOOD.

As a core facilitating partner, Mondial Assistance dedicates a special platform to MASSIVEGOOD donors. Its teams are mobilised to answer all calls 24/7 in English, German, French and Spanish. For the past several weeks, the associates concerned with MASSIVEGOOD have been preparing to respond to all the different types of questions that might be asked.

Figures about the diseases

• Every three seconds, a child under the age of five dies in low-income countries. Under-five mortality decreased by almost 25% between 1990 and 2006. However these past achievements are threatened by the current economic crisis and could lead to an increase in infant deaths in developing countries by 200 000 – 400 000. 
• Every minute, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Pregnancy-related complications annually claim the lives of 585,000 women, leaving approximately 1 million children motherless. These children are 10 times more likely to die prematurely. 
• Malaria is the leading killer of children under five and infants in Africa: 85% of the 881,000 deaths in 2006 were children under the age of five. This is equivalent to 2,051 children dying each day. 
• For HIV/AIDS, children represent an even bigger challenge. Only a minority of children has access to antiretroviral treatments; high investments are needed to improve this coverage due to difficulties to diagnose HIV in children and to the lack of appropriate and affordable pediatric medicines. Recent progress in the prevention of mother-to-child transmissions proves that effective measures could be implemented to prevent the 400 000 annual infections of newborn children. 
• Tuberculosis mostly affects young adults in their most productive year. However, over 250,000 children were at high-risk of developing Tuberculosis in 2006 and 100,000 children will continue to die each year from Tuberculosis. 
• Although the countdown to reach the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is rapidly approaching, progress towards health-related MDGs is too slow. Most developing countries have made no progress (37%) or insufficient progress (51%) towards the reduction of child mortality. MDG5, which aims at reducing the maternal mortality rate by three quarters, is lagging behind other indicators with more than 500 000 women still dying in pregnancy or childbirth every year.