KNUST Logo

West African Society for Pharmacology

Formation And Purpose Of The Society

The West African Society for Pharmacology (WASP) / Societe Ouest Africaine de Pharmacologie (SOAP) was founded in 1971, with the late Prof. Gilbert Onuaguluchi as its first President. It was established for the purpose of advancing the science of Pharmacology and allied sciences in the West Africa sub-region. In doing this, the Society strives to improve and maintain the highest professional and ethical standards amongst its members as well as other practitioners of Pharmacology.

Scope and Coverage

•WASP is a member of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR), a voluntary non-profit association representing the interests of pharmacologists around the world.

•It is informative that the formation of WASP pre-dates that of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), indicating the foresight of pharmacologists within the sub-region.

The 15-member countries of WASP correspond to those of ECOWAS, namely:

  • Benin
  • Burkina Faso
  • Cape Verde
  • Cote D'Ivoire
  • Gambia
  • Ghana
  • Guinea
  • Guinea Bissau
  • Liberia
  • Mali
  • Niger
  • Nigeria
  • Senegal
  • Sierra Leone
  • Togo.


 

 

Aims And Objectives Of WASP/SOAP

The overall aim of this project is to mobilise non-Nigerian pharmacologists from both Anglo-phone and Franco-phone West African countries to active participation in the West African Society for Pharmacology.

The project's specific objectives are:

  • Utilise participatory methodologies, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, etc, to identify the actual (real), immediate and remote reasons for the non-participation of pharmacologists outside Nigeria in WASP programmes and activities.
  • Educate pharmacologists and allied professionals on the need to be actively involved in WASP and IUPHAR, highlighting the benefits they stand to gain as individuals, schools and as countries.
  • Work with the pharmacologists to find real solutions to the obstacles that had militated against their participation hitherto, and encourage them to overcome them, attend future WASP conferences, and submit manuscripts for publication in the Society's journal.
  • To build a strong regional Pharmacological Society that will provide a viable forum for active research collaboration in the sub-region.
  • To develop, standardise and harmonise pharmacology curricula for the various academic and professional programmes both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
  • To have a common resource of high-level pharmacology man-power that will be readily available to the entire sub-regional institutions to draw on.
  • Reposition the Society journal, the West African Journal of Pharmacology and Drug Research, so that it would be published more frequently (quarterly or monthly) and be given a more prominent international and truly bilingual publication.
  • We count on all pharmacologists and allied scientists in West Africa to support this project for the benefit of all of us.


Journal and Newsletter

WASP-SOAP is the publisher of West African Journal of Pharmacology & Drug Research since 1974 to date, and despite some setbacks over the years, is in its 25th volume. It is still one of the highly acclaimed journals in pharmacology from within and outside Africa. The Society also publishes a newsletter, though less regularly.  It is expected that an electronic version of the letter will henceforth be published in March and September.