INDICES> Training Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutics

[Kibumba George <kibumba@yahoo.com>]

INDICES> Training Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutics
-------------------------------------------------------

This is a letter of comments from my experience in Uganda.  These are my
comments, which may not necessarily reflect the views of Makerere
University, Kampala, Uganda or the Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda or my
local Ministry of Health.

Home based management of fevers like many programmes is a v.good short-term
arrangement to handle childhood illness. Certainly mothers get access to
medicines from unqualified providers of essential drugs.

In the past, WHO (World Health Organisation) developed courses on rational
drug use and these were incorporated into the pharmacology curricula for
undergraduates in medical schools.  There is also the International Network
on Rational Drug Use (INRUD) -- But impact from these arrangements is yet
to be realised.  While in most National Drug Policies there are components
of training professionals to handle drugs, pharmacists in the developing
world continue to be few and most Schools of Pharmacy lack facilitation.

Pharmacy in the developing world has not been facilitated; yet in most poor
settings, drugs represent the highest out of pocket house hold
expenditure!!!

If WHO, Geneva  would like to see tangible and sustainable results in the
area of quality use of drugs in developing countries, this what can do the
trick

1.  Empower Schools of Pharmacy in Developing Countries with facilities so
as to expand intake.

2. Ensure that lecturers of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutics in these
Schools of Pharmacy are awarded Scholarships for further study.  Studying
these subjects at post graduate level should initially be from a country
with a developed system.   Learned and knowldgeable lecturers are more
likely to churn competent graduates, who will flood the market.   The
graduates will run drug distribution points and advise mothers correctly --
as numbers increase.

Hope you will take these isssues into consideration,

regards,

George Kibumba, B.Pharm, MPS
Teaching Assistant,
Dept Of Pharmacy, Mulago
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
P.O.BOX 7062,
Kampala, Uganda
Email: kibumba@yahoo.com


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