WHO, pharmacists raise alarm over growing threat of chronic diseases

Odukoya becomes Fellow of WAPCP

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) and pharmacists under the aegis of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (WAPCP) have raised the alarm over the growing threat of what they referred to as “double burden” of communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the world.

The pharmacists, therefore, urged African health authorities to “build resilient health systems”, adding that having “strategies that focus on one health intervention but fail to provide the full range of basic services have had distorting effects and may re-enforce health inequalities and undermine broader efforts”

Speaking at the 27 Annual General Meeting and Scientific Symposium organised by WAPCP in collaboration with Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria
(PSN) in Lagos on Tuesday, WHO National Medicine Adviser in Nigeria, Dr Ogori Taylor, a pharmacist, stated that diseases of public health importance were increasingly threatening the global healthcare system.

Taylor, who was the Keynote Speaker at the event, stated that although some infectious diseases had been effectively controlled with medical technologies, others are reemerging in form of resistant strains.

The former Senior Lecturer of Clinical Pharmacy at the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) stated that with the growing threat of NCDs, the world is in a great trouble.

Highlight of the event was the induction of 10 elected fellows, including the immediate past dean of UNILAG Faculty of Pharmacy, Prof. Olukemi Odukoya for her great contribution to the development of pharmacy in general and pharmacognosy in particular in Nigeria.
Odukoya is the first female pharmacist professor in pharmacognosy in Nigeria and first professor of pharmacognosy at UNILAG. A recipient of many academic awards and professional fellowships, Odukoya had received a Gold Medal award-the highest honour of academic excellence in research and innovation from the University of Lagos in 2012. Odukoya has been a resource person on herbal medicine for WAPCP since 2003.

WAPCP also inducted 161 graduating fellows and 280 members who passed 2014 Part One Fellowship Examination of the college.

WAPCP President, Mr Wiltshire Johnson, who congratulated the fellows for their new feat, said without strong and capable public health capacity in Africa, even “resources devoted to Africa in the past decade to combat public health disease will and have quickly reached a point of diminishing and marginal returns.”

Johnson added the “priority of quick fix and rapid disease specific interventions that show quick tangible results in supposedly the numbers of lives saved has not produced the results we need.”

He, therefore, called for the building of resilient health systems in Africa to meet growing healthcare challenges on the continent.

Johnson said: “ Problems of public health importance run far deeper than an epidemic outbreak of an hemorrhagic disease. In our region, it includes HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), multi-drug resistant TB, malaria, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), meningitis, reproductive maternal and child health issues, gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, non-communicable disease including diabetes, hypertension, cancer, chronic respiratory conditions, alcohol, drug abuse, mental health, not excluding greed and corruption, unethical medical practices and zero accountability. Others include substandard, falsified, falsely labeled and counterfeit pharmaceuticals, irrational medicine use, weak or non-existent drug supply and distribution chains and inadequate number of appropriately qualified health workers. These are all concurrently over grown, overcoming under resourced re-occurring, emerging, re-emerging, persistent and existing diseases of public health importance.”
Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health, Mr Linus Awute, commended the college for the scientific symposium and urged pharmacists to put in their best in the fight against diseases of public health importance. Awute, who was represented, added “the request of the college to use the facilities of the Federal Ministry of Health for its residency programme is receiving adequate attention.”

Taylor said: “In the last 20 years, 30 illnesses of public health concerns such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola virus disease (EVD), hepatitis C, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and bird flu have emerged and remained incurable. Studies show that epidemics of influenza and other emerging diseases are traveling faster and wider than ever before, owing to global trade and travel. Some modern diseases have been effectively controlled with the help of modern technologies such as antibiotics and vaccines. Others, such as malaria, TB, bacteria pneumonia, are now re-emerging in form of resistant traits to drug treatment. HIV has become pandemics, and has killed 30 million people in Africa. Some times, HIV has wiped out some villages and communities.