2025
Maisha Meds
With the drastic cuts made to USAID in early 2025, we felt compelled to fill whatever tiny portion of the gap we could. We knew that vital services, medication, and food would be cut off causing untold suffering and threatening millions of lives.
Our search led us to a number of projects and organizations in sudden and desperate need but we were most inspired by the opportunities offered in a partnership with Maisha Meds.
At its heart, Maisha Meds is a mobile app that connects patients to private pharmacies across Africa. In many African countries, the state health system fails to reach millions of people who must rely on private pharmacies whose prices are often out of reach. Maisha Meds incentivizes pharmacists to serve low-income patients by subsidizing the cost of their medication and matching pharmacies to these customers. To benefit from the subsidies, pharmacists agree to best practices in prescribing and testing , ensuring the most is made of scarce medicine.
Kindling’s gift is going to two different programs. The first is an emergency intervention that will save lives right away. In Northern Nigeria and Western Uganda, Maisha Meds has been treating febrile malaria patients with life-saving medication. Malaria is entirely curable but without medication, it is often lethal. At $3.20 a patient, Maisha has already served more than one million people. Our gift ensures that thousands of more patients will survive this disease.
The second program is a pilot program in partnership with the government of Kenya to provide HIV medication. This medication ensures that HIV+ patients can live long, healthy lives. Funding for the program was pulled after only 20 patients were enrolled. However, Maisha believes if they can reach 1,000 patients, they will be well positioned for a $12 million grant from a private foundation to fully scale the work. We are excited to be a part of making sure this benchmark is achieved.
While we know our gift cannot begin to make up for what has been lost in the US pull-back from international aid, we believe we can create a bridge for these truly effective programs to stay alive long enough for our leaders to come to their senses and re-engage with those most in need.