UKRAINIAN SPECIALISTS UPGRADE QUALIFICATIONS OF EMPLOYEES OF STATE SUPERVISION SERVICE FOR PHARMACEUTICAL ACTIVITY OF REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN
Republic of Tajikistan is a well-known market for national pharmaceutical enterprises, though the number of commercial agreements is comparably low. At the same time, more than 95% of medicines, sold in Tajikistan are imported from China, India, Russia, Kazakhstan and several other countries, including Ukraine. According to the data of the Ministry of Healthcare of Tajikistan, Pharmaceutical market volume was more than 116 million USD in 2010, whereas this year it is likely to be over 120 million. Moreover, it is reasonable to think that this figure will be increasing significantly in the coming years.
The geographic peculiarities of the country (remoteness of big cities, the difficulty of transportation in mountainous area), complicated economical and foreign policy situation determine difficulties in development of major sectors of national economy of the republic, including the pharmaceutical sector. Thus, pharmaceutical production is running only in some drug stores in large cities (foremost in Dushanbe). Such production is carried out with the use of outdated equipment and often in premises without observing modern sanitary standards. The most widespread dosage forms are powders, Vaseline, lanolin and polyethylene oxide-based ointments, solutions for injections and infusions. Such medications are sold at comparably low prices and are intended for low-income citizens and hospitals.
Certainly it is hard to provide the high quality of products in such conditions. The level of facilities at drug stores also remains low. Besides this, cases of falsified and infringement products sales are being registered in the country.
Specialists for pharmaceutical sector are trained by two higher educational establishments: Tajik State Medical University (TSMU) named after Abu Ali Ibn Sino (Avicenna) and Tajik State National University. Both higher educational establishments have Faculties of Pharmacy where Pharmacy students are trained.
The current President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon follows the policy of harmonious development of the country. This involves, in particular, increase of efficiency of pharmaceutical production and development of educational and healthcare systems. Some effective measures were taken to improve the situation in health services over the last few years. Thus, the Services for state supervision of pharmaceutical and medical activity have been established; the control over narcotic, psychotropic substances and precursors has been increased, the drug import regulations have been tightened.
Under the auspices of upgrading qualifications of employees of state regulatory bodies in the healthcare sphere, the events aimed at establishing connections with specialized educational establishments from CIS countries have been carried out. One of the lines of such cooperation is inviting professionals from Ukrainian higher educational establishments for consulting and training specialists.
In the second half of October associate professors of the Department of Quality Management of the National University of Pharmacy (Vyacheslav Lebedinets and Svetlana Kovalenko) gave a course of lectures and seminars on the issues of quality management in Pharmacy by invitation of Service for State supervision of Pharmaceutical activity of Republic of Tajikistan (Dushanbe). It is important to note, that in 2010 the group of representatives of various regulatory authorities of Tajikistan pharmaceutical sector enrolled at NUPh’s “Quality, Standardization and Certification” program – a very topical direction for modern development conditions of the republic.
This trip has become the first official visit of lecturers of the NUPh Department of Quality Management to CIS countries by the invitation of a regulatory authority. Before that there were trips to Georgia, Russia and Kazakhstan by invitations of separate pharmaceutical companies.
The course of seminars and lectures has been carried out in a very friendly environment: trainees accepted experience of Ukrainian specialists with interest and were vividly discussing various applied questions: from separate regulations of good practice to conceptual provisions of international quality management standards. Expertise in many of discussed questions will soon be in high demand in launch of new production, optimization of activity of local distribution companies as well as in the process of reorganization of the system of retail drug sale through pharmacies. Definite measures for improving their work will be adopted by the regulatory authority itself.
In the course of the visit the program of further cooperation between the Service for State supervision of Pharmaceutical activity of Republic of Tajikistan and NUPh Department of Quality Management has been discussed. Today there is every reason to believe that traveling seminars, lectures and consultations, which are a fruitful exchange of experience, in course of time will become more and more popular. The Tajik party is interested not only in local staff training, but also in more profound scientific research activity that provides for possible dissertations defense in NUPh’s specialized scientific councils by Tajik specialists.
