Edmonton-based Afexa made the $100,000 goodwill gesture to acknowledge the dedication and sacrifice of teachers and to recognize their vulnerability when it comes to germs and viruses carried by their students. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that children get eight to twelve colds per year, while adults get an average of two to four colds per year. In an average year up to 4,000 Canadians die from flu related complications while 36,000 die in the U.S. CDC statistics indicate 22 million school days are lost each year in the U.S. as a result of colds. Thirty-eight million school days are lost due to seasonal flu. No comparable figures are readily available for Canada.

Ed Butler, President of the Edmonton local of the Alberta Teachers' Association covering the 210 schools in the public system says, "A teacher can have more than 100 students cycle through their classroom in a day. In this type of environment, the level of exposure to colds and flu among teachers is higher than many other groups. This gift from COLD-FX will be appreciated and most certainly put to good use by our teachers." COLD-FX is also being provided to nearly 90 schools in the catholic system.

Afexa Life Sciences Inc. Chief Scientific Officer and co-discover of COLD-FX, Dr. Jacqueline Shan says "Teachers' immune systems face an onslaught of attacks from cold and flu viruses. And for a lot of different reasons, schools tend to be ideal breeding grounds for viruses. Because of its name, a lot of people think COLD-FX is just for colds, but our clinical research shows that it is also effective for flu. We are hoping COLD-FX can offer some additional protection to teachers and the public in general in what experts say could be well be one of our worst cold/flu seasons in some time."

Earlier this year, COLD-FX was chosen as the Official Cold and Flu Remedy of the Olympics and to help protect the health of Canada's elite athletes from colds and flu the Company committed itself to providing 1,500 athletes, coaches, trainers and support staff at seven training sites around the country with COLD-FX to strengthen their immune systems as they train for next year's 2010 Winter Games.