Today we walked to three class A pharmacies by the main Makeni market to discuss how they screen and refer women. The first pharmacy we went to was marked "noncompliant" by our field fellow Gabi. We decided to go anyway to get a sense of why they were marked this way. A man greeted us and told us that his pharmacy does a lot of screening for women, particularly pregnancy and UTI tests. He says that women (usually rural) walk in groups to his pharmacy, and that they stop there on their way to the market to pick up supplies. His pharmacy screens women there, and then depending on the results, treats them with either amoxicillin or ciprofloxacin. He employs a lab technician to do the screening and interpretation of results. They also do more advanced screening such as HIV, diabetes and typhoid. He has no refrigeration for any of his drugs and all of them are imported from either China, India or the UK. He stated that most never complete the entire dosage of antibiotics because once they feel better they see no need to complete the rest. We all were alarmed by this, because of antibiotic resistance and how dangerous it can be.
The next clinic we went to was called "Poormans Pharmacy." It was much larger and employed more people. The owner wants to sell our product and seemed to be very interested in Ukweli. His pharmacy also screens women on the spot and provides them with medication. More advanced cases are referred to health clinics/hospitals.
pictured: owner of Poorman's Pharmacy
The third clinic was not at all interested in carrying our product. He stated that his pharmacy does not screen women due to contamination. His pharmacy is too small to screen women and he does not feel comfortable doing so. He only supplies the treatment medications.
Visiting all three ultimately gave us good insights on how the referral process works and the accessibility to UTI treatments. Our venture can only exist in type A pharmacies that have a lab space for screening.