The Roles of Pharmacists in Responding to Public Health Emergencies: A Case of COVID-19

Abstract

: Emergencies are a significant menace to health services. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is one such emergency that took the world unaware and demanded more concentration from health-care providers, including pharmacists. To keep the pandemic at bay, pharmacists had to work on the frontline and to large extent, they still work alongside other healthcare professionals leveraging on the lessons learnt from the pandemic. The intent of this study was to present a general survey of pharmacists’ role in responding to public health emergencies, some challenges faced and some strategies that have been formulated by which they can perform these roles correctly. The study was carried out by searching databases such as the World Health Organization, Yale Medicine, NCBI, CDC, Google Scholar, Research gate, WebMD, and PubMed. It was discovered that pharmacists are now greatly involved in COVID-19 vaccine administration, COVID-19 testing, and sensitization.