The World Health Organization is promoting community-based services to end HIV/AIDS by 2030. In Nigeria, studies on community pharmacists’ involvement in HIV testing services (HTS) and antiretroviral (ARV) medication therapy management (MTM) are scarce, and no study had evaluated the clients’ opinion on community pharmacy HTS. We assessed the community pharmacists’ involvement in HIV/AIDS services and clients’ opinions of community pharmacy HTS. Semi-structured questionnaires on a five-point Likert scale were administered to 701 selected community pharmacists and 5840 clients in southwest Nigeria in 2019. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. Response rates were 68.6% and 69.8% for community pharmacists and clients, respectively. Only 18.5% of community pharmacists offered rapid HTS and 30% refills of ARV. The total score of their involvement on the HTS was 20.94 ± 17.521 (range 8–40; midpoint 24) and on ARV/MTM was 22.98 ± 19.61 (range 9–45; midpoint 27), while 91% were willing to participate in training. Barriers to integrating services into practice were lack of clinical tools (46.8%), lack of collaboration with other healthcare professionals (39.1%), and lack of training on HIV/AIDS services (36.2%) among others. Also, 77% of the clients were willing to participate in community pharmacy HTS, and about 83% of them responded that knowing their HIV status will help them to take necessary precautionary actions. Community pharmacists’ involvement in HIV/AIDS services was low. However, they showed willingness to participate in training to improve services. Also, clients were willing to receive community pharmacies HTS to know their status.

Objective: The study appraised the distribution of pharmacists in the six (6) zones of Nigeria; determined the number of community pharmacies per population in each zone and in selected States; and assessed the implication of pharmacists' distribution in the provision of safe medicines and pharmaceutical care. Methods:Register of pharmacists and pharmacies for 2013 and population estimate of 2013 were used to determine the percentage of pharmacists and number of community pharmacies per population in each zone. Interviews conducted for pharmacists were analyzed.Results: About fifty-six percent (56.2%) of all registered pharmacists works in the community pharmacies. Distribution of community pharmacists shows Southwest (SW) 41.7%, Northcentral (NC) 20.6%, Southsouth (SS) 15.5%, Southeast (SE) 12.9%, Northwest (NW) 6.7% and Northeast (NE) 2.5%. In SW zone where pharmacists are highly concentrated, rural/urban distribution of community pharmacies revealed urban 89.9% and rural 10.1%, and a community pharmacy serviced 36,836 of the population. Inequitable distribution is due to low turn-out of graduate pharmacists, dearth of pharmacists abroad, poor remuneration, poor political will to employ pharmacists at the PHC level and poor amenities in the rural areas. This has led to the irrational use of medicines, non-professionals in practice, chaotic drug distribution system, poor access to safe medicines and negative effects on health indicators. Conclusion:Improvement in the country economy, increasing number of faculties of pharmacy and improved facilities in the existing ones to increase turn-out of graduate pharmacists coupled with incentives for the establishment of rural community pharmacy will increase access to safe medicines and care in Nigeria.

Purpose: To evaluate pharmacy practice laws and regulations in Nigeria and recommend ways to overcome the challenges facing its implementation. Methods: Semi-structured questionnaire of 19 questions was administered to pharmaceutical inspectors of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) to assess pharmacy practice laws and regulations in terms of its mandate, the challenges in implementation and recommendations for amendment for legislative attention. Data were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics. Results: Respondents (87.5%) were not satisfied with the existing laws and regulations and 56.3% agreed that they were inadequate to regulate the practice of pharmacy profession in Nigeria. Some respondents (37.5%) agreed that the laws and regulations were not specific on many issues that require regulation and enforcement while all of them (100%) agreed that the laws did not adequately capture offences and penalties for offenders. Half of the respondents (50%) were of the opinion that the name of the regulatory body poses a limitation to the regulation of its sub-cadre while 43.8% agreed that consistent court injunctions and litigation that occurred had hampered regulation of pharmacy practice as a whole. Conclusion: The existing laws and regulations are inadequate to regulate the current pharmacy practice in Nigeria. Need for speedy review in order to meet up with the current reality in practice, wide publicity, increase manpower, adequate funding and strong legal backing of PCN activities were recommended.

Background. Community pharmacists have considered training in health promotion services to improve their practice, but no published study in Nigeria has provided such training to improve practice change. Objectives. The study aims to develop and evaluate the appropriateness and applicability of health promotion training provided for community pharmacists after identifying the gaps in the provision of health promotion services in community pharmacies in Oyo State, Nigeria. Materials and Methods. A 2-day training was developed, conducted, and evaluated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, semistructured questionnaire administered to randomly sampled 80 respondents. It rated participants’ opinions on the training content, resource persons, and perceived sufficiency of the training. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Version 21 with descriptive statistics while open-ended responses were analyzed thematically. Results. Response rate was 72.5%. Total mean score of participants’ opinions on the training program was 45.67 ± 5.802 (range of 10–50; midpoint 30). An average score ranged from 3.97 to 4.61 out of the total score of 5 was obtained for good presentation abilities of the resource persons. Respondents (93.1%) strongly agreed and agreed that the training was sufficient to deliver the health promotion services (4.36 ± 0.765). They suggested the need to organize the training periodically (15.5%), training to cover other areas like use of diagnostic test kit and immunization (13.8%) and allowance of more time for interaction and sharing of experiences by participants (10.3%). Conclusion. The training was adequate for use by community pharmacists and fit for the purpose it was designed for.