Kluwer to Join Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative -HINARI- Second Phase.

Business Editors

DORDRECHT, The Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 29, 2003

Kluwer Academic Publishers announced its participation in the second phase of the prestigious philanthropic project Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI). The initiative itself is a major aspect of the work of the Health InterNetwork project which was introduced by United Nations' Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the UN Millennium Summit in the year 2000. The project aims to strengthen public health services by providing public health workers, researchers and policy makers access to high-quality, relevant and timely health information through an Internet portal.

Launched in January 2003, the second phase of HINARI is underway. Many of the world's leading scientific publishers are offering online access to high-quality medical and related sciences journals for a symbolic price of $1000 per year, beginning with a six-month free trial. All fees received from institutions eligible for participation in this project will be re-invested for on-site training.

Each publisher has been free to determine which countries and which journals they include in HINARI. In the case of Kluwer Academic Publishers this includes 140 state-of-the-art Medical journals covering a wide range of multidisciplinary scientific research areas including Internal Medicine, Cardiology, Surgery, Neurolosciences, Oncology, Clinical Microbiology, Pathology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ophthalmology, Biomedical Engineering, Genetics, Veterinary Medicine, Biochemistry, Social Medicine and Health Care, Psychology, Behavioral Sciences and Psychiatry from the imprints Kluwer Academic Publishers, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, Kluwer Academic/Human Sciences Press, Kluwer Academic/Consultants Bureau and Maik Nauka/Interperiodica.

The following countries have been elected by Kluwer Academic Publishers as being eligible for the 'HINARI Second Phase': Algeria, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guatemala, Jamaica, Macedonia-TFYR, Marshall Islands, Morocco, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Samoa (Western), Suriname, Tonga, Tunisia and Wallis-and-Fortuna.

"Kluwer is honored to work in close harmony with the World Health Organization and our colleague STM publishers to further the worldwide dissemination of scientific information," stated Peter Hendriks, President Kluwer Academic Publishers. "Doctors, nurses, researchers, librarians and field staff will now have access to a wealth of imperative biomedical information that the majority would never have been able to afford otherwise. This is an enormous move forward to the security of World Health and we are pleased to have our authors and contributors so well represented in these developing countries."

The following countries have also been granted access to Kluwer's journals within the framework of HINARI PHASE 1: Albania, Armenia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Dem. Rep. of the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Kiribati, Lao People's Dem. Rep., Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Republic of Moldavia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

About Kluwer Academic Publishers

Kluwer Academic Publishers is a leading publisher of scientific information, specializing in numerous fields within Science, Technology, Medicine, Humanities and Social Sciences. Located in Dordrecht, Boston, New York and London, Kluwer provides high quality online products and services, journals and books, featuring leading authors and researchers from around the world. For more information on Kluwer, visit www.wkap.com.

Health InterNetwork

The Health InterNetwork was created to bridge the "digital divide" in health, ensuring that relevant information - and the technologies to deliver it - are widely available and effectively used by health personnel: professionals, researchers and scientists, and policy makers. Launched by the Secretary General of the United Nations in September 2000 and led by the World Health Organization, the Health InterNetwork has brought together public and private partners under the principle of ensuring equitable access to health information. The core elements of the project are content, Internet connectivity and capacity building.

As the first phase of making vital health content available, the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) provides a vast library of the latest and best information on public health: more than 2,000 scientific publications, one of the world's largest collections of biomedical literature. This collection is available through the efforts of WHO together with the 6 biggest biomedical publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, Springer Verlag and John Wiley. It has been described by former WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland as "perhaps the biggest step ever taken towards reducing the health information gap between rich and poor countries."