Free Access to eMedicine for Developing Countries' Professionals
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eMedicine Provides Developing Countries' Health Professionals with
Free Access to Online Medical Reference Library

St. Petersburg, FL, USA, November 15, 2001 -- eMedicine.com, the pub-
lisher of the world's largest online current medical reference, an-
nounced today they will use models developed by major publishers, to
determine which third world countries will get free access to their
online medical reference. eMedicine's plan goes further than the re-
cently publicized World Health Organization effort. According to
Scott Plantz, M.D., eMedicine CEO, "We want to ensure that as many
health professionals as possible have access to our online reference,
not just the research facilities."

He added that eMedicine is planning to work with the International
Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP).
"INASP has longstanding experience of working with developing and
transitional countries in matters of information production, access
and dissemination," said Carol Priestley, Director, INASP, "eMedi-
cine's effort will go a long way to further the aims of our program
of work in INASP-Health and will be a welcome addition to the Program
for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI)."

WHO recently announced it would provide free access to four publish-
ers medical journals to research institutes in developing countries
with a GNP per capita less than US$ 1,000. Countries with a GNP per cap-
ita of between US$ 1,000-3,000 will be offered deeply discounted
online subscriptions to the journals. According to Dr. Plantz, "WHO's
effort to provide developing nation's research institutes with access
to journals inspired us to expand on this program. We will donate
subscriptions of our medical library to the same country's health
professionals and researchers." He added they would expand access to
all countries with per capita incomes of less than US$ 3,000.

Health professionals are already familiar with the eMedicine's online
Emergency Medical Reference, which has seen over 20 million users. It
is the only online medical reference that is updated 24 hours a day.
All content undergoes strict peer-review by four physicians.

Dr. Plantz related how a recent request by an urologist who does vol-
unteer medical work for Malawi illustrates the need for his new pro-
gram. Nicholas Viek, M.D., explained to Dr. Plantz how Malawi is one
of the poorest nations. There are no current medical books accessible
to Lilongwe Central Hospital's physicians. Under the new eMedicine
program, all health professionals in Malawi would have access to
eMedicine's online medical reference.

eMedicine was founded in 1997, and is privately held with headquar-
ters in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA.

Barbara Ware
eMedicine.com
Public Relations
Tel: +1-301-625-9011
mailto:[email protected] [2]

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