Pharmacists everywhere in the world should get involved in counselling, prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and also of TB. Prevention should be given extreme importance than advice, said Ivan Kotze of Commonwealth Pharmacists Association.

He was delivering the keynote address in the pre-conventional seminar on HIV/AIDS organized by Indian Pharmaceutical Association as part of IPA Convention 2010, in Chennai.

Kotze said pharmacy workforce can curtail the spread of infectious diseases like AIDS provided the role of pharmacists is strengthened. According to him most of the deaths occurred to young people are preventable and treatable. He said in 1996, 3.5 million people died due to spread of HIV in the world, but in 2008, it has reduced to 2.7 million. In the case of TB, African countries are leading. Effective supply of medicine, strengthening of national healthcare system and proper counselling through pharmacists can control the diseases like HIV/AIDS and TB.

IPA president Dr B Suresh, while delivering the presidential address, said the pharmacists have to equip themselves to give counselling to the people in the society in preventing the disease. He said according to a statistical report by World Bank, India has more than 5.1 million HIV infected people. When conducting preventable programs for HIV, pharmacists should be given prominence. On several occasions, negative attitudes from healthcare staff have generated anxiety and fear among many people living with HIV/AIDS. In these circumstances, the pharmacists can play a good role in eliminating the fear about all kinds of infectious disease.

S V Veeramani, chairman of IPA Convention wanted the working pharmacists, the community pharmacists, and those aspiring pharmacists to consider service to the society as their goal as pharmacists are the backbone of the healthcare system.

M Bhaskaran, director of Drugs Control Tamil Nadu, while addressing the audience, stressed the need for strengthening the quality of drugs across the world and said it should be unified. He exhorted the manufacturers and exporters that while maintaining the stability of drugs for export, the same quality should also be maintained for the drugs used for domestic purpose.

S D Joag, general secretary of IPA said the regulatory agencies are bound to ascertain good quality of medicines that are sold by retail shops. Shanthy Gunasekaran, assistant Drugs Control of CDSCO, highlighted the need to conduct workshops for small and medium scale manufacturers on stability testing. J Jayaseelan, secretary of IPA proposed vote of thanks to the participants. The two-day IPA convention-2010 will start on March 13 at 10 a.m.