As Ethiopia works to rapidly scale up ARV treatment to hospitals and health centers throughout the country, the need for trained clinical pharmacists has become increasingly important. Pharmacists need to be properly trained on ARV dispensing, procurement, administration, distribution, and storage. Additionally, they need to understand how to monitor drug effectiveness and side effects and be able to counsel patients on ARVs.
In response, AIHA established a partnership linking the Addis Ababa University School of Pharmacy and Howard University School of Pharmacy. Since 2007, partners have been working to strengthen pharmacy services within Ethiopia’s healthcare system by training current and future pharmacists to support the expansion and provision of quality ART.
At the outset, they conducted a baseline assessment of existing levels of education, training, work experience, and
attitudes of pharmacists in Ethiopia, which informed their subsequent efforts.
Well-trained pharmacists are a fundamental part of HIV/AIDS clinical teams in Ethiopia. Consequently, strengthening pharmacy services is critical to efforts to
provide quality HIV treatment and support as the country works to rapidly scale up ART in hospitals and health centers nationwide.
Partners are supporting ART expansion in Ethiopia by establishing an accredited continuing education program at AAU School of Pharmacy and introducing
a center of excellence for the clinical training of faculty, practitioners, and students who provide pharmaceutical
care and services to PLWH. They are also working to improve access to unbiased, up-to-date, clinically oriented, and evidence-based pharmaceutical
health information for HIV patients, healthcare professionals, students, faculty, and the public in general by building institutional capacity at AAU.
Key accomplishments of this partnership to date include the delivery of five 7-day training-of-trainers workshops on selected topics in pharmacotherapeutics and drug
informatics for local pharmacists, as well as the opening of a replicable Drug Information Center of Excellence at Black Lion Hospital and five satellite centers at regional universities, with three more regional satellites slated to open in the coming year.
Partners also completed preceptor training for 40 pharmacists and physicians from 10 institutions to support the initiation of clinical rotation sites for pharmacy students and have conducted a curriculum harmonization workshop involving representatives from all six schools of pharmacy in Ethiopia. In addition, Six Ethiopian physicians completed a two-week training at US teaching hospitals to better understand the role of clinical pharmacy to support the healthcare system. The training prepared them to serve as clinical preceptors for Ethiopian Pharmacy BS students.
A group of six Ethiopian pharmacists and students enrolled in the Clinical Pharmacy Practice Program at AAU School of Pharmacy traveled to Zambia in August 2011, where they spent four weeks gaining much-needed practical skills through a clinical attachment program at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka and Livingstone General Hospital (LGH) in Livingstone.
The clinical attachment represents an excellent example of the synergies that exist — and are capitalized on — within AIHA’s
HRSA-supported HIV/AIDS Twinning Center program.
Because clinical pharmacy is a nascent field in Ethiopia, the Zambian partners at UTH and LGH are able to share their own experience through the attachment program. Following an orientation at UTH, each Ethiopian team member rotated through assignments in the
surgical, internal medicine, gynecology and obstetrics, and neonatology wards. These week-long rotations provided them with a clear picture of how pharmacists can play an integral role in the day-to-day care of patients as part of the clinical care team. They also gained insight into many organizational and pharmacy
management operations that can be readily applied to pharmacy practice in Ethiopia.
Updated November 14, 2011
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