Introduction:
The outbreak of Novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the recent
worldwide disaster which is considered by the WHO as a Public Health
Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) (1). The
first case was discovered in Wuhan City, China (2, 3)and then after few weeks spread as a global pandemic(4, 5).
In Sudan the first reported COVID-19 positive case was in 11 of March
2020, at the time of writing this article (6 March 2020) there were 9081
reported cases.
The novel corona virus can live on hands,
surfaces, objects, mucus membranes, body fluids, respiratory secretions,
and spread from person to person through the direct contact(6, 7), which makes the most effective preventive
measures are avoiding close contact with people, hand hygiene, clean and
disinfect surfaces (8), as there is no specific
efficacious treatment or vaccine available for this virus until writing
of this paper (9, 10).
Pharmacist’s knowledge about different aspects of this pandemic is
crucial because it influence their role and contribution as a frontline
health care provider, as pharmacies and most of the pharmacy practice
sectors are kept open even during lockdowns providing counseling,
patient care (11, 12, 13).
To strengthen pharmacists knowledge about COVID-19, there are many
training programs held worldwide, for example the International
Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), and American Pharmacist Association
(APhA) have issued guidance, and resource documents(14,15)
Although the role of pharmacist especially in the community is ranging
between essential and expanded role according to the policies in
different countries (16-18), but still pharmacist can
provide valuable services during COVID-19 pandemic, these services may
include: provide reliable information on the disease, participate in
public education on preventive measures, referring of suspected cases,
insuring continuous supply of medicine (19, 20).