My Summer Internship at the World Health Organization

Lily Mignault reports about her time with the Roll Back Malaria Initiative in Geneva, Switzerland.

I am a third year pharmacy student and I just finished doing a summer internship at a partnership hosted by the World Health Organization called Roll Back Malaria in Geneva, Switzerland.  I
applied for the internship because I have always had a strong interest in essential medicines/neglected diseases and I wanted to see what was being done at the global level to help with medical issues facing the developing world. I also wanted to explore the branch of humanitarian pharmacy, and learn more about career options in that field.

I spent my summer working in “Procurement and Supply Management” with a French pharmacist and a Belgian physician and our role was to coordinate the supplies of medications and long lasting mosquito nets to Africa. They both have many years of previous field work in Africa and know the problems that are faced and try to work “from the ground up”. My role as an intern was to help out with anything and everything that the physician and the pharmacist needed, which could be contacting manufacturers, reading on technical documentation about drugs and net specifications and creating an online library to make it easier for the countries to purchase and learn how to use meds and nets properly (for example, the library would include information like steps to take before hanging the net over someone’s bed).

Africa has very different medical procurement and supply chain issues than those faced in the western world, and even if the meds are tested as safe and effective and do get to Africa, it can be a big problem for them to get to the villages when there are no roads to get there. A remote district in Africa once received funds to buy a few cars, but then asked if they could spend the money to purchase many donkeys instead. Turns out donkeys were very efficient to get from the villages to the main city, and more people could have access to a donkey than to a car. In the end the money was well spent and everyone benefited from having a donkey. This is the type of issue that we really don’t learn in the classroom but that has a huge impact on medicine distribution.

Another interesting project going on is the use of text messages to send inventory levels of medications to manufacturers. Since there are many villages that lack electricity, a partnership was created between local cell phone companies, a software company and Roll Back Malaria. Local medical authorities were supplying cell phones to the medical centers in villages and they were asked to send a SMS once a week with the inventory levels of medications. This project worked out perfectly, and many villages were now receiving medications in a timely manner (under normal circumstances, someone from a village would write a letter asking for a refill of meds and wait for someone to go to the closest city to mail it to the manufacturer).  I attended a meeting where the users of the technology in Africa were explaining their thoughts on it. All loved it except one, who had to go 30 minutes away from his village with his donkey to the closest mountain to find a good signal!

The internship program at the WHO is very well structured, and there is a big intern community. A few times a week the WHO would schedule “Expert talks” that we could go attend where we would hear from experts in different fields talk about what’s up and coming in the medical field, like vaccines for HIV, polio eradication, TB or the emergence of non-communicable diseases in the developing world.

Global health is a field in which pharmacists are generally underrepresented and where their knowledge can greatly impact the health of populations in need. It’s very inspiring to work alongside such talent, and to learn from people who have had experience dealing with issues in all areas of the world. The networking opportunities at the WHO are invaluable. One of my fondest memories from being there was networking with a TB specialist from Rwanda who was sent thru MSF to Siberia to diagnose TB for inmates in jail. There is still so much to do at the international level to help achieve health equality in developing countries and I truly believe that students that are still contemplating their career path and are unsure about which direction it should take should consider applying to their program.