Before the pandemic started, the Philippines was seen to have steady economic growth, becoming one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia with an average GDP of 6.3% over the ten years until 2019.

However, the onset of the global health crisis brought the country’s economy into recession, breaking almost three decades of uninterrupted growth. Since the pandemic started, the country’s COVID-19 cases are now over 1.6 million as per the Department of Health (DOH) data.

Major metropolitan areas like Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao, posted the bulk of the COVID-19 cases, and various degrees of community quarantine are implemented to control the spread of the virus.

Helping alleviate challenges

Aligned with their mission and vision of understanding and meeting the real needs of people, Orient Euro Pharma Philippines (OEPP), a company creating innovative, affordable, and high-quality pharmaceutical products for cardiovascular, metabolic, and respiratory infections, initiated a program to help alleviate the challenges in the country.

Through their Project #Hope or Helping Our Patients Every day, OEP recently donated the much-needed Erdosteine to key government COVID-19 medical facilities.

Erdosteine is a mucolytic indicated for the treatment of acute and chronic bronchitis. It has been the subject of numerous clinical trials, showing to be effective as an add-on treatment to Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients for as long as 12 months.

Adding Erdosteine to the usual treatment therapy of hospitalized patients with COVID-related pneumonia and severe respiratory failure helps improve their overall health-related quality of life, says a study published in Multidisciplinary Respiratory Medicine 2020 journal.

As part of their corporate responsibility program, OEPP’s #HOPE aims to support around 600 post-covid patients from hospitals, such as the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, the Philippine General Hospital Section of Pulmonology, and Quirino Memorial Medical Center.

“As we create more plans to help the people amid the global health crisis, we hope that this small donation initiative we did can have a huge impact on the patients’ lives. This initiative is also our way of giving back to the community and supporting the Filipino patients afflicted with this deadly disease,” said Sharon Ibay, Product Manager.

Founded in 1982, OEP is a full-scale, multinational pharmaceutical company. Their core competencies not only include pharmaceutical innovation, R&D, manufacturing, sales, and clinical trials but have significantly increased the company’s operational efficiency through vertical integration to provide customers with more complete services.

To know more about Orient Euro Pharma,  check out their website at https://www.oepgroup.com/en-global.