Charles Sturt University (CSU) has begun vaccination training with its pharmacy students in the strongly held belief Australia will follow an international trend to allow pharmacists to vaccinate.

 

Professor of Rural and Remote Pharmacy at CSU, Professor Patrick Ball, and his colleagues, believe pharmacists, like doctors and nurses, will soon be able to deliver vaccinations in their pharmacies.

 

“Building from a proposal of my colleague Associate Professor Maree Donna Simpson, from the start of 2010, we are preparing our pharmacy students to administer vaccinations, including how to treat fainting and the extremely low risk of an anaphylactic reaction,” Professor Ball said.

 

“As of late last year, all the states in the USA allowed pharmacists to immunise. In some states up to 90 per cent of adults receive their vaccinations in pharmacies.  It has begun in Canada, is under active consideration in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and a recent pilot in Tasmania saw nurses coming to pharmacies to administer H₁N₁ influenza vaccines.

 

“Pharmacists are trusted professionals and I believe we could play an important role in promoting immunisation in the general community.

 

“The accessibility of our profession and the fact pharmacists are very well versed in medications and their interactions means that, suitably trained, we are able to successfully vaccinate.”

 

In the training program introduced at CSU in 2010, students in their fourth year are being educated on how to vaccinate, how to handle adverse events and the administration aspects of vaccines such as securing consent and checking medical histories, and maintaining the patient’s vaccination-status records, with their doctor and other health professionals.

 

“From this year, all Charles Sturt University pharmacy graduates will have passed training similar to the USA standards. Our aim is for all second, third and fourth year students on placement to be trained and available to vaccinate should Australian regulations permit,” said Professor Ball.

 

Professor Ball from the School of Biomedical Sciences at CSU in Wagga Wagga presented ‘Vaccination in the Pharmacy: International Experience and Potential for Australia’ to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (NSW Branch) Zone Leaders’ Conference in Sydney on Sunday 14 February.

 

CSU’s four-year Bachelor of Pharmacy course in Orange and Wagga Wagga is the first pharmacy degree in Australia to be offered outside a metropolitan area.