The world is undergoing profound changes, leading to crises, which impact and multiply in all regions. Whether political, demographic, economic and climatic in nature, all crises contribute to worsening the health conditions of affected populations, creating an ideal breeding ground for epidemics. Here again, developing countries are the hardest-hit, with mothers and children at the forefront.

This is why the Mérieux Foundation, an independent family foundation with public interest status, has been fighting infectious diseases affecting vulnerable populations in resource-limited countries for over 50 years.

Operating directly in more than 25 countries, it is committed to strengthening local capacities, particularly in clinical biology, in order to improve care, surveillance and response to epidemics.

The foundation works side-by-side with local partners and builds networks to mobilize the skills and energies necessary to implement effective and sustainable actions.

It is particularly involved in the public health issues that have the greatest impact in the countries where it operates, such as antimicrobial resistance, tuberculosis, acute respiratory infections and HIV.

Committed to a global health approach, the Mérieux Foundation goes beyond medical care to include all the health and socio-economic issues that influence the well-being of the populations in the countries where it operates.

The foundation works closely with Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux, an independent family foundation under the aegis of the Institut de France, to sustainably improve the quality of life and health of mothers and children.

The Mérieux Foundation’s action focuses on four main objectives:

• Increasing vulnerable populations’ access to diagnostics by strengthening clinical laboratories in national healthcare systems.
• Enhancing local applied research capabilities by creating Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratories transferred to local partners, training researchers and developing collaborative programs.
• Encouraging knowledge-sharing and public health initiatives working with Les Pensières Center for Global Health.
• Improving conditions for mothers and children taking a global health approach.

One of the main pillars of the Mérieux Foundation lies in its capacity for direct intervention in the field, from the network of 18 laboratories of excellence built at the source of outbreak-prone regions, to the presence of local teams in 14 countries. To carry out its mission, the Mérieux Foundation can rely on its expertise, its great experience in the field and its local partnerships built up over more than 15 years of international development.

The outbreak of an unprecedented pandemic in 2020 serves as a reminder of the persistent threat of infection and the fragility of our world in the face of pathogens that know no borders between countries or species.

In a world faced with a serious threat of infection and major geopolitical instability, our Foundation is now fully operational and ready to take on its public health role and support vulnerable populations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Haiti. We carry out this role as part of a global healthcare approach, which goes beyond providing medical care to include nutrition, the quality of water and the environment, and education.

We are able do this thanks to our local knowledge, the strength of our network of outpost Rodolphe Mérieux laboratories (now present in ten or so countries) and the mutual trust we have been able to establish over time with our partners in these regions. Our laboratories are now all managed by local biologists and health workers, who are perfectly familiar and in tune with the current situation in their countries.

This strategy has enabled us to reinforce our presence in our main area of expertise, clinical biology, in West Africa, and in particular in Burkina Faso, a country with which we have been working since 2009. We have decided to set up a new Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory in Ouagadougou, work on which is set to commence soon. This new laboratory will be integrated in the epidemiological surveillance and research networks that we are setting up with our partners in this region of Africa: ResaoLab, G5 Sahel, and GABRIEL.

This new project mirrors the sending of two P2/P3 container laboratories to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019, in response to the Ebola crisis. A few months later, during the Covid pandemic, these diagnosis units in Goma became reference laboratories.

The same kind of reactivity allowed us to intervene rapidly in Madagascar to support the most vulnerable groups: mothers and their children. We were able to provide a targeted response to the malnutrition crisis affecting this country, and continue our actions to support education, an essential cornerstone in our global healthcare approach.

Following our initial contact in October 2019 with the President of Madagascar, who warned us about the food crisis affecting the southern part of the country, it took just a few months, in partnership with Nutriset, for us to send a container plant to Tolagnaro to produce nutritional supplements. This plant is now fully operational and, buoyed by its success, we are planning to roll out the project on a larger scale while giving the local economy a boost by using local farmers to produce raw materials.

At the same time, we stepped up the support we have been giving Father Pedro for several years now in order to set up a language university for young people, supported by the Akamasoa association.

Our Foundation has many reasons to be proud of our achievements and believe in the future. These include making diagnosis accessible to as many people as possible in Africa, ensuring better nutrition for many children in Madagascar, and providing education for younger generations.

Month after month and in one country after another, the deployment of our projects was hampered by various obstacles relating to health, security, or the climate. The environments we now find ourselves working in are becoming increasingly complex and are forcing us to redouble our efforts and ensure greater flexibility, adaptability and even innovation to meet the growing needs of our beneficiary populations.

All this disruption has only served to confirm the importance of biological diagnosis and the need to strengthen overall health systems even further, particularly in developing countries. The historic work of the Mérieux Foundation, based on developing and supporting infrastructures to give populations access to high-quality diagnosis, has therefore naturally been reinforced.

Some of the key achievements of the past year include the inauguration of the Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory in Tunis and the laying of the foundation stone for the future Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory in Casablanca. Other construction and extension projects have been launched, with the same goal of tackling infectious diseases over the long term.

At the same time, the Foundation’s expertise in dealing with antimicrobial resistance, a key public health issue, was reflected in the development of the second edition of the international course on antimicrobial resistance (AMR course) organized at the Les Pensières Center, as well as in the growing number of projects and partnerships in 2021, particularly in Madagascar, Laos, and Senegal.

The recent crises that have shaken the entire world and the significant deterioration in the economic and social situation of the countries in which we operate have shown us the extent to which healthcare is intrinsically linked with other areas, such as nutrition, education, and the environment. It is this global healthcare vision, cherished by the Mérieux family, that has led us to step up our Mother & Child programs this year.

Despite these difficulties, the efforts and commitment of the people working for the Mérieux Foundation have led to some major achievements, which are presented in this annual report. I would like to thank all our employees and underline the importance of forging links between head office and our work in the field, which are essential for the smooth operation of our Foundation.

The progress we make is only possible thanks to the renewed confidence of our partners and we are honored to receive their support. This allows us to pursue our mission to serve populations in our “historic” countries. Their support also encourages us to intervene in other areas with growing needs, always adapting every day to local priorities.