COVID-19 Five Years Later
Community pharmacies have a clear role in public health, as they manage ongoing services and take on a more significant role as immunizers.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected the landscape of pharmacy and health care broadly, propelling community pharmacy into the forefront of health care. Community pharmacies had a clear role in public health, as they managed ongoing services and took on a more significant role as immunizers1, and that role remains.
Community pharmacies have a clear role in public health, as they manage ongoing services and take on a more significant role as immunizers. | Image Credit: Nicholas Felix/peopleimages.com | stock.adobe.com
The public faced many fears and anxieties related to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as misinformation and disinformation regarding the virus, as information was still developing. Pharmacists were on the front lines to help the public meet the needs of patients. Many pharmacies also provided services such as vaccination and medication delivery to patients.1 Ensuring access to patients, pharmacists demonstrated that they are critical members of the health care team and continue to exemplify their skills to practice at the top of their license.
In this issue of Drug Topics, Keith Loria reflects on the 5 years following the COVID-19 pandemic in our cover story, and additional articles focus on the effects of long COVID on heart health and asthma trends following COVID-19 infection. Although questions remain about COVID-19's health effects, we are closer to answers now than we were 5 years ago.
Laura Stiles covers the risk of autoimmune diseases for patients with type 1 diabetes in her article, and Brian Nowosielski provides an update on the evolving bird flu. Lastly, with the recently approved suzetrigine (Journavx) for acute pain management, we dive into a review of the pharmacology and studies of suzetrigine in our New Drug Review, as well as the history of the opioid epidemic, the pharmacist’s role in pain management, and how suzetrigine could impact the epidemic.
As always, thanks for reading.
To read these stories and more, download the PDF of the Drug Topics March/April issue here.
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REFERENCE
1. Maidment I, Young E, MacPhee M, et al. Rapid realist review of the role of community pharmacy in the public health response to COVID-19. BMJ Open. 2021;11(6):e050043. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-050043
