Welcome to Buenos Aires on behalf of FIP and COFA!
The International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP)
Founded in 1912, the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) is the global federation of national associations of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists and is in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO). Through its 132 Member Organisations FIP represents and serves more than two million practitioners and scientists around the world.
Both internal and external forces are steering the course of modern healthcare and in turn how each profession can best contribute to it. Recognising this fact, FIP has developed a new Vision, Mission and Strategic Plan with the goal of firmly integrating the Federation and those it serves in global healthcare decisions and actions.
Local Host Committee
COFA - The Confederaçion Farmacéutica Argentina
Pharmacy Practice in Buenos Aires
The network of community pharmacies reaches out to the most remote and smallest towns in a country with a total area of 2,780,400 km². There is a pharmacist for every 1,700 inhabitants and an average of one pharmacy for every 2,550 people, which ensures access to safe and quality medicines for the entire population. In addition to the community pharmacy network, Argentina has 1,321 hospital pharmacies, 355 drug manufacturers, 20 faculties of pharmacy and 24 provincial pharmacists’ organisations.
More than a million people visit Argentina’s 15,000 community pharmacies every day, and every month the country’s pharmacists give four million consultations to patients. Most of their queries (80%) are resolved by pharmacists, representing 166,000 hours of professional patient counselling – a contribution which has yet to be duly recognised by the Argentine health system. The struggle for remunerated services is one of the main challenges that Argentina’s pharmacists currently face.
The most important challenge for the profession, however, is that the role of pharmacists as healthcare agents is yet to be fully valued by society as a whole.