Pharmacists under the aegis of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacists of Nigeria have announced that six of their 359 frontline workers have now tested positive to COVID-19.
The PSN and AHAPN urged government to urgently take steps to protect health workers at the frontline of efforts to contain the spread of the viral disease.
In two separate interviews with HealthWise, the leadership of AHAPN and PSN lamented the effect of COVID-19 on pharmacists.
The PSN President, Sam Ohuabunwa, told our correspondent that “Aside from the 359 hospital pharmacists directly involved in attending to COVID-19 patients in hospitals and isolation centres, there are other thousands of community pharmacists out there that are daily exposed to preclinical or asymptomatic patients who see pharmacies as their first port of call.”
According to findings of HealthWise, Lagos, the epicentre of COVID-19, has 61 frontline pharmacists in different capacities, with seven actively involved in the COVID-19 response research team. The other pharmacists are deployed in designated hospitals and isolation centres.
The PSN confirmed that Lagos accounted for five of the six pharmacists who tested positive to the virus.
Healthwise findings also revealed that Akwa Ibom State has a total of 12 pharmacists actively involved in COVID-19 response, with one pharmacists infected in the course of duty.
Speaking with our correspondent, Chairman, Committee of Heads of Pharmacy in all federal health institutions across the country, Dr. Daniel Orunmwese, conceded that there could be more cases of infected pharmacists but only six have so far been reported.
“Certainly, there is likely to be more cases of affected frontline workers because the majority of the players are working in different isolation centres and health facilities run by both federal and state governments.
“We are keeping a tab on the development in each state and will report when such issue comes to our attention. For now, this is the only verified information,” he said.
AHAPN National Chairman, Dr. Kingsley Amibor shared the same belief when he disclosed that there is an outside chance that the cases are more than the figures reported by chairmen of state hospital pharmacists.
He blamed the exposure of pharmacists to the infection on the perennial challenge of inadequate protective personal equipment and poor funding in isolation centres and health facilities battling COVID-19 in the country.
“Aside from inadequate PPE, we have been complaining about other challenges confronting hospital pharmacists, such as space constraints that make it difficult for patients’ confidentiality, poor funding for drug procurement, inequitable remuneration and no opportunity for pharmacovigilance.
“You will be surprised to hear that some health facilities in this country lack fans and air conditioners. The medicine storage conditions are also nothing to write home about in some places,” he said.
Amibor further observed that some hospitals are still involved in manual documentation of inventory and pharmaceutical care activities which is always tedious and time-consuming.
“These are areas we are hoping the Federal Government and the Ministry of Health can help look into,” he said.
It would be recalled that the Nigerian Medical Association disclosed some weeks back that about 300 doctors and other health workers in the country had been diagnosed with COVID-19 while caring for patients who had contracted the highly contagious disease.
The NMA attributed the problem largely to lack of necessary personal protective equipment needed to guard them against the infection when interfacing with the patients.
It would be recalled also that the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu recently revealed that 812 healthcare workers had tested positive to COVID-19.
Ihekweazu had disclosed at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja last Tuesday that 29 of the affected healthcare workers were NCDC staff.
On the other hand, Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire seemed to believe that the spread of infection among health workers was due to lack of adequate knowledge by the frontline personnel on how to protect themselves when in contact with patients.
Ehanire argued that majority of the infected frontline workers were chiefly from private health facilities, adding that only a few doctors, nurses and other workers from the various government-owned health facilities and isolation centres have had such a problem because they have been trained on how to handle COVID-19 patients, even during emergencies.
According to the World Health Organisation, for every COVID-19 frontline worker infected with the virus, hundreds of patients in dire need of his expertise would get less care than originally expected
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