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Pharmacists Working

Map No. 217

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A pharmacist prepares and dispenses medicinal drugs associated with modern medicine, rather than traditional forms of treatment. Drugs include simple pain killers and re-hydration salts, and more complicated prescriptions such as anti-retroviral drugs that can suppress HIV.

The largest number of pharmacists in the world work in the territories with the biggest populations: India and China. 42% of all pharmacists live in these two territories. The territories with the fewest pharmacists are in Asia Pacific, Central Africa, Northern Africa and Southeastern Africa.

By region the most pharmacists per person work in Japan: 121 for every 100 000 people.

"When we write out prescriptions we have to take into account the financial situation of our patients. If we prescribe medicine that is too expensive, then they just won’t buy it ..." Alphonsine, 2006

Territory size shows the proportion of all pharmacists that work in that territory.

• Open PDF poster, designed for printing. You need Acrobat Reader.
• View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page