| The Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Association (CPA) aims to help professional organisations of pharmacists deliver improved health outcomes at community level and strengthen national health infrastructures. Nowhere is this more critical than in developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, where the impact of diseases such as HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis places enormous burdens on limited health, medical and hospital services.
The CPA is working to build capacity within health systems in these countries.
Over the past five years, 400 health care workers have graduated from the
CPA’s distance learning course on managing drug supplies and 40,000
pharmacopoeias and reference texts have been distributed through its Pharmaid
scheme. The CPA has also implemented consumer health education programmes
in malaria prevention and management and held interactive workshops in
good pharmacy practice and HIV and AIDS.
Pharmaid owes much of its success to the generosity of UK pharmacists,
who donate their superseded Martindales and British National Formularies.
However, the scheme costs over £10,000 each year to run and funding
from donors and sponsors is minimal. Our malaria fact card projects cost
approximately £5,500 per country to implement. Increased funding
would accelerate these important activities.
Every CPA project is evaluated and reports prepared for funding bodies.
By international standards these activities are cost-effective and governments
have incorporated them into public health campaigns and health initiatives.
Individual pharmacists in the UK and other developed countries, can support
their colleagues in the developing world by becoming personal members of
CPA (only £10 each year) or by making a donation, or both. A pharmacist
or a group of pharmacists could sponsor a student to undertake the distance
learning course in drug supply management (it costs £80 to train
each student) or hold a fund raising event to help establish a malaria
fact card project in another country.
For further information contact Betty Falconbridge, CPA Administrator on
020 7572 2364 or visit the CPA website
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal