Interchurch Medical Assistance was formed in 1960 to streamline requests to pharmaceutical manufacturers for donations for overseas mission hospitals and health care programs. Today I.M.A. is a non-profit association of twelve Christian relief and development agencies.

I.M.A. acquires appropriate, essential, and first-quality medical goods for on-going member-sponsored health facilities, refugee services, and disaster relief programs. I.M.A. also works for the treatment and elimination of parasitic diseases.

In the past five years I.M.A. has received, packed, and shipped medical products valued at $103 million to 99 countries. The I.M.A. Medicine Box®, for example, was developed to provide a reliable source of medical products for small overseas hospitals, clinics, and medical missions. One standard 70 lb. Box containing, among other items, vitamins, antibiotics, bandages, and fever reducers, can treat 1000 people for up to three months.

With pharmaceutical production streamlined through the use of computers, the pharmaceutical industry has begun to “manufacture for donations.” I.M.A.’s work has broadened in this new environment to include the control and elimination of two important parasitic diseases – Lymphatic Filariasis and Onchocerciasis (river blindness). In cooperation with the manufacturers of the anti-parasitic drugs, local health ministries, international and multinational health care organizations, I.M.A. projects in Tanzania and Haiti represent our new emphasis in assistance to the world through disease control initiatives.