The Pharmacist Africa Newsletter
Good afternoon,
This week’s newsletter is meant to help our busy readers get a grip on important pharma news and help them make sense of the dynamic and fast-paced pharmacy world. We have news briefs on education to practice, continuous professional development (CPD), opportunities, job opportunities, manufacturing, research, professional recognitions, and newly approved products in the market.
Key announcements
i) Kenya’s national drug regulator, Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB), has announced pre-registration exam stages 1 & 2 and pre-enrolment exam levels 1&2 from 6th -10th
November 2023.
Candidates are required to make an application on the PPB online services portal before October 20th or through training@pharmacyboardkenya.org.
ii) Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya (PSK) in partnership with GPE EXPOPVT. LTD welcomes you to 7th East Africa Pharma Expo on 3-4 October 2023 at KICC.
Those interested can visit https://evenuefy.com/dashboard/sharedT/zIyf6z to register.
iii) PSK and PPB invite pharmacists to a webinar on Pharmacists in Practice, on Thursday, 5th October 2023 at 7:00 pm EAT.
Click here to register.
1st AU manufacturers marketplace meeting sets stage for vaccine access progress
African Union (AU) today hosted a Delegations of Ministers, Regulatory Authorities, and manufacturers for 1st Manufacturers Marketplace meeting for member states centered around establishing the terms of reference for a ministerial working group.
This group is responsible for guiding the development of the vaccine market for the continent and crafting the framework for pooled procurement. Organized by Africa CDC in collaboration with GAVI and co-hosted by the Kingdom of Morocco, this meeting underscores the importance of manufacturing in the agenda of strengthening health systems for Africa's pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
Scientists whose work enabled mRNA Covid vaccine win Nobel Prize for medicine
Katalin Kariko of Hungary and Drew Weissman of the United States won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday 2nd October 2023 for work on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that paved the way for Covid-19 vaccines
The pair, who had been tipped as favorites, were honored “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19,” the jury said.
The Nobel season continues this week with the announcement of the winners of the Physics Prize on Tuesday and the Chemistry Prize on Wednesday.
You can read more here.
Radiotherapy doses for prostate cancer could be cut by three-quarters, trial finds
Men undergoing treatment for prostate cancer could be safely exposed to fewer radiotherapy sessions, a big trial has found.
The trial, conducted by the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Cancer Research in London, found that radiotherapy doses can be cut by three-quarters, meaning that five higher doses of radiotherapy are just as effective as 20 smaller doses delivered over several weeks.
Findings from the study will be presented on Monday 2nd October to the American Society for Radiation Oncology in San Diego.
Read more here.
Promising malaria vaccine clears clinical hurdle, could get WHO approvals today
The good news today is that a powerful weapon against malaria, a disease that kills half a million people each year, most of them young children is most likely to be approved today.
Data from a trial involving 4800 children in four African countries suggest a vaccine developed at the University of Oxford, known as R21/MatrixM, provides significant protection against the disease.
That would make R21 the second WHO-approved vaccine for use against malaria. The first, called RTS,S or Mosquirix, was recommended for use in 2021 and has been given to 1.8 million children in Ghana, Malawi, and Kenya.
Read more here.