Roles of Community Pharmacists in Cancer Management.

Community pharmacists are among the most easily accessible healthcare practitioners and are usually the first point of contact with the public or community. This is often due to their accessibility, credibility, and widespread within the public sector making them essential members of the healthcare team with significant contributions to the delivery of public health care. Community pharmacists, in addition to their known educational and awareness-raising roles, may play an essential role in risk assessment and screening of patients, detection of symptoms of probable malignancy, and cancer treatments.

The need for a functional pharmaceutical industry in Sierra Leone: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.

With an estimated population of 8.3 million, Sierra Leone has no existing pharmaceutical manufacturing company at present. The recent COVID-19 pandemic brought to the limelight the fragility and weakness of the Sierra Leonean pharmaceutical industry as it resulted in severe drug shortages and medicine insecurity in the country due to the restrictions imposed on importations, which validates the uncertainties if the country can sufficiently meet its local pharmaceutical needs and health demands.