JCU working on pharmacy in Zambia

A total of 14 Master of Pharmaceutical Public Health (MPharmPH) students are working in the landlocked country in Southern Africa, as part of a collaboration between the European Union and the Ministry of Health, Zambia.

The collaboration is designed to strengthen the medicines distribution systems in Zambia and to improve the use of medicines in the country.

The JCU MPharmPH program is designed to further develop the public health and research skills of pharmacists so that they can better develop, deliver and have a greater involvement in the provision of public health services.

JCU Associate Professor Ian Heslop said the Zambian students are all senior pharmacists managing hospital or provincial pharmacy services and have just completed their first 12 months in the MPharmPH pathway course.

Next year, they are required to complete a research project in their current clinical settings, he said.

“The students’ projects will focus on aspects of drug usage specific to Zambia, such as the management of infectious diseases, chronic diseases and adverse drug reaction reporting,” Dr Heslop said.

“Although each individual student’s project will be relatively small, they have been developed with the students to ensure that when their results are combined that they will provide valuable data about medication usage in Zambia for the Ministry of Health and also have an impact on the future provision of pharmaceutical services in the country.”