roles of pharmacists during and post COVID-19

Journalist | Chaerin Oh | cherin02@naver.com

Designer | Jini Jeong | 6265mmm@naver.com

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, problems in the supply of masks have occurred nationwide. At this time, pharmacists cooperated as helpers of the "public mask" system promoted by the government, and the supply of public masks through pharmacies was effectively secured. Not just making every citizen get their own mask, the public mask system also made the price of mask decrease. This had a significant effect as masks became a musthave item, and lots of mask factories increased the price. At this time, the pharmacist community showed the spirit of solidarity and cooperation and showed the role as the basis for the local community.

And now, 3 years had passed since the outbreak of COVID-19. Now we are at last living a life without a mask and lots of regulation related to the virus is now getting alleviated. From now on, we should think about the future. Then what is the role of pharmacists at this point when COVID is ending?

Currently, the shortage of medicines in pharmacies is becoming severe. We can easily inductively reason that this kind of lackage is due to COVID-19 as it geometrically increased the number of patients. And this growth of patients had increased the demand for medicines as well.

However, this supply and demand problem is also occurring in products that are not related to the COVID-19 period. Although there is a precedent for solving the shortage of medicines for the common cold due to increased productivity through increased drug prices of acetaminophen, different causes of drug sellouts are slowing the resolution of the situation. Pharmacists’ inconvenience in dispensing leads to infringement of the people’s right to health. Therefore, it is necessary to quickly identify the cause of the pharmacist community and supplement the system. We look forward to reviving the solidarity and cooperation of pharmacists shown at the beginning of COVID-19 at the end of COVID-19.

To solve this phenomenon, generic substitution could be the solution. Generic substitution is the conversion of the original drug into a generic drug. In this way, all factors, including composition, formulation, and capacity, must match. Then, generic drugs are approved through biological equivalence tests. Korea has used generic substitution for more than 10 years, but there are still many restraints. Mainly, generic drugs are usually traded at a lower price than the original drugs, but in Korea, the price does not differ significantly even though the market share is 65%. In addition, there is a unique system that generic drugs can have a product name. If the alternative preparation system is improved more practically, it will be a solution to this problem. B