SPAIN: The 80th World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, organized by International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) and co-hosted by General Pharmaceutical Council of Spain (GPCS), has been postponed to 18 to 22 September 2022. The annual World Congress was scheduled to be held from 12-16 September this year at Seville, Spain.
"FIP and the 2021 congress co-hosts the GPCS have regularly reviewed Congress plans alongside the evolving impact of COVID-19 around the world, the progress of national vaccination programs, and the emergence & impact of variant strains of the virus. As a result of our latest review, we have concluded that holding a Congress this September would not be the right thing to do. We know that as many pharmacists as possible must continue to be available to patients and health systems under stress and that we would not wish to provide any means for the virus to spread," said Dominique Jordan, President of FIP and Jesus Aguilar, President of GPCS, in a joint press statement. "FIP fully recognizes the importance of continued knowledge & experience sharing, and solidarity among our pharmacy profession during this most challenging of times. FIP will continue its extensive programme of FIP Digital Events, initiated last year, alongside its other programs of work to advance pharmacy, providing colleagues around the world with numerous opportunities to learn, contribute and be part of FIP's vision of a world where everyone benefits from access to safe, effective, quality & affordable medicines and health technologies, as-well-as from pharmaceutical care services provided by pharmacists, in collaboration with other healthcare professionals," added the note.
"We hope that we will all be able to convene face to face in Seville in 2022, under better global circumstances so that we may celebrate, in person, the huge contributions that pharmacy has made to global health and the advances made during the COVID-19 pandemic," concluded the joint statement.
