Pharmacist Jimmy Olu Coker FPCP of Banjul Pharmacy, was recently elected president of the West African Post Graduate College of Pharmacists for a period of two years, 2009-2011.

Coker, an examiner of the Post Graduate College of Pharmacists for the past four years, was elected during the 21st annual general meeting and scientific symposium held from the 15-20 March 2009, in Accra, Ghana. Speaking to the Daily Observer in his office in Banjul, Coker revealed that the pharmacy profession in the West African sub-region is advancing to a very critical stage, noting that community professional practising standards are in the decline in both Anglophone, Lisophone and some Francophone countries.

He further gave a background of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (WAPCP), formerly called the West African Pharmaceutical Federation (WAPF), founded in Monrovia, Liberia, by representatives of National Pharmaceutical Societies of the Republic of Benin, Ghana, The Gambia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. "The Republic of Benin, Ivory Coast and Senegal later opted for observer status. The organisation then became a specialized agency of the West African Health Organisation (formerly West African Health Community)," he said.

Commenting on the aims and objectives of WAPCP, Coker said they are to advance professional postgraduate education and training in all pharmaceutical disciplines, to promote and achieve a high standard of professional practice and competence among pharmacy practitioners, to further advance the knowledge of application of pharmacy in the total health care system, and also to promote and facilitate pharmacy practice and research in the sub-region.

On the achievements of the sub-regional organisation, Coker pointed out that development of pharmaceutical manpower in the member countries through continuing education, diploma and fellowship programmes and to facilitate the establishment of schools of pharmacy and the University of Sierra Leone contributed to the formulation and harmonisation of drug laws in the West African sub-region. The theme for the 21st Annual General meeting and scientific symposium was ‘Challenges of pharmacy in improving the quality of life in the West African sub-Region’.