The Gambia will next week host the 24th annual general meeting and scientific symposium of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (WAPCP).
To be held at the Kairaba Beach Hotel on the theme ‘Poverty disease and drugs in regional development’, the event will bring together participants from Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, Burkina Faso and the Gambia from the 12th – 16th March.
An agency of the West African Health Organization (WAHO), an organ under ECOWAS, the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists has over the years graduated over seven hundred fellows in different disciplines.
Background
In the mid-seventies, Pharmacists in the West Africa region realized the need for them to come together to harmonize and develop pharmacy education, laws and practice in order to improve the quality of healthcare and the life of the people of the region.
This led to the formation of the West African Pharmaceutical Federation (WAPF) in October 1976 in Monrovia, Liberia.
The inaugural meeting was drawn from Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Francophone countries however withdrew from the federation.
In the process of realization of their vision, there was the need to establish a postgraduate professional training program leading to fellowship award in order to meet the expanding roles of pharmacist worldwide and the changing needs of the society in pharmaceutical care.
In 1991, the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacist was established under the educational mandate of WAPF and the college was officially inaugurated in Accra, Ghana in February 1991.
The first batch of fellows by examination was admitted into the college in February 1997. In November 1999, the Assembly of Health Ministers of the then West African Health Community approved and changed the name from WAPF to WAPCP.
With the change, WAPCP became the official the official agency representing the pharmacy profession in the West African Health Community which was subsequently replaced by the West African Health Organization.
Vision:
To be international recognized as a centre of excellence that promotes the teaching, research and training in post-graduate.
Pharmacy specialist to meet the challenges of health care.
Mission:
To advance post graduate education and training in all discipline of pharmacy for the acquisition of knowledge attitudes, skills and competency to promote and maintain a high standard of professional pharmacy practice.
Achievements:
Facilitated the establishment of the school of pharmacy, university of Liberia and Sierra Leone; Harmonize drug laws and regulation in WAPCP member countries; facilitated the establishment of quality control laboratories in WAPCP member countries using the machinery of WHO and other non-governmental agencies; graduated over 500 fellows by examination since 1997 and facilitated the lifting of the ban on made in Nigeria drugs in West African region.
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