Pharmacies in the Airport Ecosystem and How They Serve Travelers' Health and Medicines Need: Findings and Implications for the Future.

INTRODUCTION: Pharmacists at airport pharmacies could offer essential health services for air travelers. Consequently, this study aimed to explore the type of professional services, the types of medicines at airport pharmacies and the pharmacists' experiences and views regarding their practices. METHODS: A qualitative study was conducted with pharmacists practicing in airport pharmacies from June 2020 to December 2020. A validated Google form-based interview questionnaire was developed, and the electronic link was sent to the participants. Recruitment of participants was continued until data saturation was achieved. In total, 15 pharmacists working at different airport pharmacies in different countries were included. Thematic analysis was used in the data analysis. RESULTS: The study identified six major themes including type of professional services and medicines at airport pharmacies, pharmacists' experiences, challenges at the airport pharmacy, suggestions to improve airport pharmacy services, pandemics and the role of pharmacists, and business aspect of the airport pharmacies. The study showed that several professional services provided at airport pharmacies, including the provision of medicines, health products, general health services, travel health services, and counseling. Moreover, 46.7% of the participants reported having a dedicated travel health service. In addition, most of the participants described their experience at airport pharmacies as good and exciting as they met different people from different countries. The most common challenges that pharmacists face at airport pharmacies include language barriers, requests for different medicine brands by travelers, and financial issues. The participants indicated that there is a need for promotion of pharmacists' role in providing health care services at airport pharmacies. CONCLUSION: The study showed that pharmacists could play vital roles in providing medicines and health care services for air travelers. However, there is still further scope for improvement in this sector of the pharmacy profession to ensure a more active role in travel medicine.

Protein and peptide delivery to lungs by using advanced targeted drug delivery.

The challenges and difficulties associated with conventional drug delivery systems have led to the emergence of novel, advanced targeted drug delivery systems. Therapeutic drug delivery of proteins and peptides to the lungs is complicated owing to the large size and polar characteristics of the latter. Nevertheless, the pulmonary route has attracted great interest today among formulation scientists, as it has evolved into one of the important targeted drug delivery platforms for the delivery of peptides, and related compounds effectively to the lungs, primarily for the management and treatment of chronic lung diseases. In this review, we have discussed and summarized the current scenario and recent developments in targeted delivery of proteins and peptide-based drugs to the lungs. Moreover, we have also highlighted the advantages of pulmonary drug delivery over conventional drug delivery approaches for peptide-based drugs, in terms of efficacy, retention time and other important pharmacokinetic parameters. The review also highlights the future perspectives and the impact of targeted drug delivery on peptide-based drugs in the coming decade.

Fighting Strategies Against the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact on Global Economy.

Sudden outbreak of a new pathogen in numbers of pneumonic patients in Wuhan province during December 2019 has threatened the world population within a short period of its occurrence. This respiratory tract-isolated pathogen was initially named as novel coronavirus 2019 (nCoV-2019), but later termed as SARS-CoV-2. The rapid spreading of this infectious disease received the label of pandemic by the World Health Organization within 4 months of its occurrence, which still seeks continuous attention of the researchers to prevent the spread and for cure of the infected patients. The propagation of the disease has been recorded in 215 countries, with more than 25.5 million cases and a death toll of more than 0.85 million. Several measures are taken to control the disease transmission, and researchers are actively engaged in finding suitable therapeutics to effectively control the disease to minimize the mortality and morbidity rates. Several existing potential candidates were explored in the prevention and treatment of worsening condition of COVID-19 patients; however, none of the formulation has been approved for the treatment but used under medical supervision. In this article, a focus has been made to highlight on current epidemiology on the COVID-19 infection, clinical features, diagnosis, and transmission, with special emphasis on treatment measures of the disease at different stages of clinical research and the global economic influence due to this pandemic situation. Progress in the development on vaccine against COVID-19 has also been explored as important measures to immunize people. Moreover, this article is expected to provide information to the researchers, who are constantly combating in the management against this outbreak.