BUY UGANDA VANILLA BEANS                                                                                   Soybean Oil and Soya Cake/Meal in Uganda

476 Licensed and Registered pharmacists, not enough for Uganda Health Investors

The shortage of qualified pharmacists is constraining investment in the health sector, according to medical practitioners.

According to the secretary Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda (PSU) Opio Samuel, Uganda produces at least 60 pharmacists from local universities per year; against the 3,000 desired.

"Lack of enough pharmacists puts Uganda's health sector in a critical position, it remains unfortunate that we have a pharmacist to patients ration of 1:100,000; against the 1:1,000 recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and this escalates the shortage of human capital in pharmaceutical businesses," he said.

Opio was speaking at a recent function in which Abacus Pharma, a regional distributor of pharmaceutical products handed over sh80m to PSU, to support the organization's Needy Pharmacy Students scheme for this academic year.

He reasoned that encouraging more investors in the sector would avail facilities like modern teaching laboratories, industrial training centres as well as the reagents necessary to facilitate pharmacy courses at tertiary education levels.

The managing director for Abacus Pharma Ramesh Babu said that his company has for the last five years offered full whole-course expenses sponsorship up to 20 students per year in different universities and currently spending over sh4.1m per student.

"Being key players in the East Africa's pharmaceutical industry, we noted that the problem of shortage of pharmacists is so critical in Uganda that without supporting the process at institutional level, we can't have the problem mitigated as quickly as required," he said.

Uganda, with a population estimated at 34 million, is served by only 476 licensed and registered pharmacists, according the recent statistical records available with the PSU.

According to the global pharmacy workforce and migration report 2007, Uganda ranked worst compared to Kenya and Ghana; whereby, a population of 21 million people, Ghana had 2,162 while Kenya had 1,342 pharmacists in 2005 for a population of 24 million people.

Players in the pharmaceutical industry are pessimistic that the shortage of professionals is paving way for the escalating operations of unscrupulous people who promote the wrongful usage of medicine, thus defaming the lucrative business.

BY DAVID SSEMPIJJA
The New Vision Newspaper
1 MAY 2012

Click here to post comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Frequently Asked Questions about Health in Uganda.





Haven't yet found what you Want...?

If you haven't yet found what you were looking for or you need detailed information about the subject matter on this page

then...

feel free to ask our business travel consultants.



Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.