As day 3 of the APACC conference drew to a close I reflect back over the information sharing of the challenges and achievements of hard working individuals and organisations involved with HIV/HCV in the Asia Pacific region. When I think over the past 3 days as a pharmacist, I couldn’t help but think about relevance in my field and how can I employ what I have learned here into clinical practice. Whilst I recognise that Australia is very lucky with our health care system and access to HIV/HCV medications compared to other countries in the Asia Pacific region; there are still gaps where people living with HIV are falling through the cracks. With an increasing aging HIV population the likes of which has never been seen before, I feel pharmacy as a profession can help contribute as part of a holistic multidisciplinary model. Pharmacists are well placed to aid in recognition and screening of the long term complications of HIV multimorbidity such as cardiovascular disease, HTN, hyperlidaemia and diabetes associated with HIV/HCV . Further, pharmacy can aid therapy optimization via medicines reviews, quality use of medicines and medication education and counselling as well as smoking cessation support.
