Page 16 - RA2020 FONDATION PIERRE FABRE EN

TRAINING OF DRUG SPECIALISTS
PROFESSIONALISING PHARMACY SUPPLY CHAINS
and increasing their autonomy
Training students, upgrading instructors’ skills and strengthening educational and technical capacities are the three pillars of the work being done by the Foundation to professionalise pharmacy supply chains.
Recruited from the public, academic or industrial sectors, these degreed pharmacists help to improve skill levels along the entire medication supply chain – manufacturing, distribution, control and dispensing –, which directly impacts the quality of healthcare products used by the populations in need.
MÉKONG PHARMA NETWORK
In Asia, the Mékong Pharma Network project was designed to capitalise on the work and collaborations developed through the Master’s programme of the same name created through the relocation of four Master’s degrees from French universities in South- East Asia between 2012 and 2019. The objective is to strengthen training and knowledge exchange in pharmaceutical sciences at the Universities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Phnom Penh in Cambodia and Vientiane in Laos.
The first seminar held in Phnom Penh had 45 participants who came to learn about issues of analytical toxicology in February 2020. Starting in the spring, to tailor the sessions to respect restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, it was decided that the four partner universities should be provided with the digital environment essential for remote work. The servers and software necessary for operating a distance-learning platform (Moodle) are gradually being installed at each university with the help of experts from the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF). The next objective is to train IT specialists and instructors in using Moodle, which will be done in 2021 by AUF experts at each school.
TRAINING THE INSTRUCTORS
Training instructors at the doctoral level is vital to ensuring high-quality instruction is delivered to future generations. To this end, in 2020, in Laos, the number of educators holding a PhD increased from three to six (five of whom received a grant from the Foundation). Between 2017 and 2020, 36 of the 48 educators updated their knowledge (especially in the disciplines of clinical, medicinal, hospital and therapeutic pharmacy). The Faculty of Pharmacy of Vientiane therefore has university staff with updated scientific knowledge and a group of qualified instructors at the highest level in their specialty. This result is thanks to relentless investment and support by the Foundation for more than 15 years.
In Togo, training initiatives for young teachers continued despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic. Many educational sessions were held remotely with major modifications to curriculum timetables. Both teachers and students laboured vigorously to produce lower- cost hand sanitiser and other protective supplies for the most disadvantaged.
GRANT PROGRAMME
In 2020, four healthcare professionals from sub- Saharan Africa (three physicians and one pharmacist) were awarded a Foundation training grant following a call for applications. All of them have agreed to return to their home institutions after earning their degree (see the interview with two doctoral students supported by the Foundation, opposite). In each of its areas of intervention, the Foundation is committed to training personnel in healthcare-related domains. In 2020, 42 grants or scholarships were awarded to students representing 16 countries (see inset p. 19).
Fondation Pierre Fabre – 18