Dear TechNet-21 Community,
For many years, pharmacists have been involved in supply chain and supporting campaigns to support immunization by patients, but they are more and more involved in the delivery of immunization services (adding up to the existing immunization team).
This was highlighted in its last FIP report "An overview of current pharmacy impact on immunisation: A global report" (see attachment).
This report was based on data collected from 45 countries and found thatnearly a half (44%) have community pharmacy premises offering vaccinations, demonstrating the expansion and growing acceptance of pharmacy immunisation services around the world. An increasing number of countries are introducing immunisation rights specifically for pharmacists. In 13 of the 45 countries, pharmacists themselves have the authority to administer vaccines and, therefore, the potential to reach 655 million.
This expanded role of pharmacists has been supported by theJoint FIP/WHO guidelines on good pharmacy practice (2010), list the roles and functions of pharmacists, one of whcih being "Administration of medicines, vaccines and other injectable medications".
The report includes in-depth case studies from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and USA, with advancement examples that can potentially be adopted by other countries to advocate for a national immunisation strategy that actively involves pharmacists as part of the public health agenda. The findings also highlight that, in some countries, vaccine administration is part of the pharmacy undergraduate curriculum and that the perceived competition threat to other health care professionals providing immunisation services is diminishing.
Best regards
Luc Besançon
FIP CEO