3M, Ecolab to Send Medtech Supplies to Battle Ebola

Medical supply companies are reaching from Minnesota to West Africa to help fight the Ebola epidemic.

Maplewood, MN-based 3M Co.and St. Paul, MN-based Ecolab announced upcoming donations of millions of dollars worth of health care supplies and equipment for aid workers in areas heavily affected by Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), according to a report in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

Last month, 3M responded to requests by Direct Relief International and sent thousands of 3M's N95 respirator facemasks. 3M spokesperson Donna Fleming Runyon announced further donations to relief agencies Project Hope and Map International, who are currently compiling a request list, are forthcoming.

Sanitizer and cleaning-chemical producer Ecolab will send soaps, hand sanitizers and disinfecting cleansers to Sierra Leone and Liberia. The donations will total $1.8 million worth of product, according to spokesman Roman Blahoski.

The efforts began after an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore placed a call to Ecolab to request material donations. As Ecolab's health care business president Martha Aronson related, many of Johns Hopkins medical professionals were going to be "on the ground" helping patients and containing the disease.

Ecolab employees helped out with the project and coordinated production and shipments with World Emergency Relief to get the products from the ports to the aid workers and hospitals in affected areas. Disease and relief efforts will be evaluated by company officials in the coming weeks and more supplies will be sent if needed.

The Centers for Disease Control list the number of suspected and confirmed EVD cases at 2,473 and suspected case deaths at 1,350. Its spread has increased pace recently. According to the latest World Health Organization Ebola virus disease update, between August 2 and 4, a total of 108 new cases of Ebola (laboratory-confirmed, probable, and suspect cases) as well as 45 deaths appeared in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.

Is your company also sending free medical supplies to West Africa? Let our senior editor Chris Newmarker know.

Anastasia Thrift is a contributor to Qmed and MPMN.

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