LG Electronics said Tuesday that it will back a project by the International Vaccine Institute to provide free cholera vaccinations for some 40,000 people in Ethiopia for three years starting in 2021.

LG Electronics and IVI will also establish a disease monitoring system in the region.

“Although COVID-19 has taken attention away from cholera, it still remains a disease that takes away many lives across the globe,” said Jerome Kim, director general of IVI. “Together with LG Electronics, we will do our part to not only tackle cholera in Ethiopia but also in the rest of the world.”

“LG Electronics will stay responsible to society to resolve issues of disease and poverty in Ethiopia,” said Yoon Dae-sik, the company’s senior vice president of government relations.

IVI is a nongovernmental organization initiated in 1997 by the United Nations Development Program. It develops and supplies vaccines to bolster public health in developing countries. It is the first international NGO to have a South Korean headquarters.

LG Electronics has sponsored IVI vaccination programs in Southeast Asia and Africa since 2008. It also supported a five-year study into waterborne infections and vaccination in Ethiopia that began in 2010.

For the new cholera vaccination program, LG Electronics will be using a social responsibility fund collected from its high-ranking officials.

Since 2004 LG Electronics has taken a fixed portion of its ranking officials’ yearly salaries, and banked it for use in community work both in Korea and overseas.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)