RWANDA is a land locked country with an economy that is dependent on subsistence farming, tourism and exportation of tea and coffee among other sectors. The service sector contributes 49.27% and the industrial sector 14%, reports the World Bank. 

However, the small country aspires to reach a status of high income country by 2050 through a series of seven year national strategies for transformation. But it is questionable to achieve the latter if Rwanda still spends $97.6 million on drugs importation a year and is expected to increase by $ 102.5 million in 2024. 

As ranked by World Bank in 2020, Rwanda has a GDP per capita of $ 823 (Rwf 805,133) which is far less from $ 12,536 required to join the high-income countries’ group which is Rwanda’s 2050 vision. 

In order to fill this gap, Rwanda has to empower industrial sector as well as other sectors with pharmacy playing a key role in both industrial sector and health sector. 

How can this be achieved? There is big gap in Rwanda’s pharmaceutical which has to be addressed, if done, can make a great change not only in the medical sector but also to the economy of the country. Here are a couple of recommendations to follow: 

Promotion of homemade drugs and medical tools

Today, the pharmaceutical sector heavily relies on importation of drugs as well as various medical equipments as there is only one drug manufacturing   plant which contributes between 10 to 20percent of the required drugs. 

This hinders the provision of health services to the citizens in different ways as it is one of the leading factors contributing to the increased cost of medicaments. 

Well, despite the government’s efforts in eliminating those social determinants of health, establishing Mutuelle de Sante, as one of the measures, but yet, the government still spends Rwf 6 billion each year as an addition to the latter. 

Moreover, when the imported products delay, hospital pharmacies run out of stock and it affects patients in need of those medicaments.  

This can be solved if the government opens up more doors to the private investors who want to invest in the in drug-manufacturing projects.   

More pharmaceutical higher learning institutions 

There is only one university in Rwanda that provides the pharmacy program in its bachelor’s degree, that is the University of Rwanda. Its data indicate that 50-100 graduates graduate each year. But these are few compared to the need of the profession in the community. According to the list of registered pharmacists and pharmacy technicians released on 25th February 2019 by The National Council of Pharmacy, there is a total of 923 pharmacy and pharmacy technicians in Rwanda.

This is a low number compared to the demand of the community and the reason behind the low number of pharmacists is due to the fact that higher learning institutions are still few in the sector. 

This number cannot allow us to move even one inch toward the high income country status that we are heading to, even though we can have many drug manufacturing factories but still we will be in need of man power to operate them. As we don’t have more schools that will provide them, we will always have to hire them from abroad and this will affect our economy. 

Hence, more competitive pharmacy programs should be established in the country, and those present should be equipped with more equipments. 

Enhanced community contributions of pharmacies 

Pharmacists play crucial roles to in their societies: They help in improving medication safety and offer medical advices to the community which saves lives. They are also among the font liners of Non-Communicable diseases fight, which account to 70% of world’s deaths. According to the Rwanda Biomedical Center, Rwanda spends around $221.7 million on disease prevention and control of the program, so enhancing this role of pharmacists is another investment.

Conclusively, I make this call to all the concerned elements, to see this as a challenge we have for sustainable development that we envision. My suggestion is that there must be proper way to handle this depending on everyone’s capacity. 

This should take place in line with Rwanda’s overall direction for the country to attain the dream to becoming a smart, healthy and happy society by 2050. 

 Bonheur Mudagiri is a Second-year Pharmacy student in the University of Rwanda, College of Medical and Health Sciences. 

The views expressed in this article are of the author.