Celebrating World Pharmacist Day

International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) is the body representing Pharmacist and Pharmaceutical Scientists worldwide. It has 139 national organizations, over three million members across the globe, with Head office in Netherlands and Dr. Carmen Pena as the current President. The body was founded on 25th December, 1912.

At the Council meeting of the FIP Congress in 2009, the Turkish pharmacist association proposed 25th September to annually celebrate the World Pharmacist Day (the day FIP was founded in 1912). The proposal was accepted by the Council and since 2010, the World Pharmacist Day has been celebrated across the globe.

Each year welcomes a new theme to showcase the positive impact of pharmacist in the world. The theme for 2017 World Pharmacist Day is “From research to health care: Your Pharmacist is at Your Service”.

FIP President Dr. Carmen Pena sad, “The theme was chosen to reflect the numerous contributions the Pharmacy profession makes to Health. From research and development of Medicines to educating Future Pharmacist and Pharmaceutical Scientists, and providing direct care, we do all this in the service of our patients and communities.

“We want emphasize that Pharmacist are backbone of health care in many different settings. But providing care does not begin in the community or hospital pharmacies. Taking care of patients start with recognizing the health issues of population and developing medicine policies and education to tackle them. We pharmacist are there at the very beginning of the process - when the first molecule that effectively treat a disease is identified.”

Here in Nigeria, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria is an Association for all pharmacist founded in 1927 with the aim of maintaining high standard of professional ethics and discipline among its Members. It has Head Office in Lagos with Ahmad Ibrahim Yakasai FPSN as the incumbent President, State Chairmen for the 36 States of the Federation and five technical arms namely: Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacist (AHPN), Association of Community Pharmacist in Nigeria (ACPN), National Association of Pharmacist in Academia (NAPA), National Association of Industrial Pharmacist (NAIP) and recently Young Pharmacist group of Nigeria (YPGN).

There are more than 23,000 registered pharmacists, 17 Accredited Universities offering Pharmacy as a Degree course either as Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm. D) which is the current minimum standard in many developed countries or Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.pharm). There is a Pharmacist Council of Nigeria (PCN) which is a federal government agency responsible for regulating and controlling education and practice of Pharmacy in all aspects and ramifications, including Pharmacy Technicians and patent and proprietary medicine vendors.

For better and effective Pharmaceutical services in the country, we need to train more pharmacists as what we have currently is below the World Health Organization Minimum requirement; provide better strategies and technology in detection of counterfeit and substandard drugs; amend Pharmacy and drug related laws for better legislation and regulations, promote and encourage local drug production. Sa’idu Lawal Burji, Kano, burji1120@ gmail.com