Pharmacy preparedness during phases of pandemic COVID in Odisha, India

Abstract

The COVID 19 pandemic is one of the worst pandemics that struck the world, after the Spanish flu in 1918 and stalled the entire public health care system. Initially in the absence of definite drugs, the primary mitigation priority was prevention. Its web like spread put pressure on the accessory health care systems too and the most affected were perhaps the Pharmacy. In India the pharmacy are an integral part of health services, with desperate demand for an array of supplies and drugs, affecting the Pharmacies and their functioning tremendously, they too have contributed immensely in the mitigation strategies of the government. The study assesses the pharmacies in terms of their preparedness to cope with the demands and enhancement of role of the pharmacists to provide cost effective and consumer friendly services.Online services were good and satisfactory and were offered by only the big scale pharmacy (67%) ;Pharmacists from small scale set ups were yet to be vaccinated (33.3%), preparedness was optimum in terms masks and sanitization of premises, but IEC materials were missing in the small shops(44.4%); supplies were good and surplus but small scale ones sometimes sold the cost effective one’s; adjuvant drugs were in excess but drugs for moderate to severe form of COVID were limited to facility based pharmacyonly. Non COVID medications,in order to prioritize COVID drugs,went missing.Stock charts were displayed by big and middle level shops. Study suggests the pharmacy role in managing a pandemic is upnteem and periodic checks and regulations should be revised as per needs of the time.