Last week concluded with a meeting of pharmacists from different African countries such as DRC, Ivory coast, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria for a symposium at University of Rwanda College of Economics and Business in Kigali.

The Pharmaceutical International symposium that attracted undergraduate pharmacy students and medical practitioners resulted into a commitment to ensure strong cooperation as a way to enhance knowledge and skills sharing.

Israel Bimpe, the president of Rwanda Pharmacy Student Association (RPSA), said such cooperation would facilitate joint advocacy for open access to research materials, open data, universal health coverage and access to essential medicines.

He noted that the cooperation would also be the gateway of solutions for the country.

Among other topics discussed was uniting all the African pharmacy students so that they can fight for their professional image.

The conference also offered a platform to discuss progress in research, development, standards and application of topics related to healthcare.

Prof. Nelson M. Ijumba, University of Rwanda Vice deputy chancellor for academic affairs and research, said the theme idealising the pharmacy profession by merging research and practice was appropriate to their endeavour of engaging in research that is relevant.

Meanwhile, a 29-year-old mother gave birth to health quadruplets left her fellow residents stunned.

Residents in her village of Kiziguro dubbed the incident rare.

Bonifilda Mukayigira, a resident of Rwimiterere village in Kiziguro Sector, gave birth to two girls and two boys by cesarean section at Kiziguro Hospital on Saturday, bringing the number of her children to five.

The newborn girls weighed 1.5 kilogrammes each, while the boys weighed two kilogrammes each.

Clementine Uzamukunda, a midwife at the hospital, said the babies stood a strong chance of survival, but possible complications could not yet be ruled out because their mother was not able to breastfeed them all.

Else where around the world, it is bad news for cigarette lovers after researchers found that smoking could play a direct role in the development of schizophrenia hence needs to be investigated.

The team at King’s College London said smokers are more likely to develop the disorder and at a younger age.

As published in the Lancet Psychiatry, their analysis of 61 separate studies suggests nicotine in cigarette smoke may be altering the brain.

Experts said it was a "pretty strong case” but needed more research.

For long smoking has been associated with psychosis, and often belief had it that schizophrenia patients are more likely to smoke because they use cigarettes as a form of self-medication to ease the distress of hearing voices or having hallucinations.

The data collected from 14,555 smokers and 273,162 non-smokers revealed that 57 per cent of people with psychosis were already smokers when they had their first psychotic episode.

However, daily smokers were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia just like non-smokers but smokers developed the disease a year earlier on average. Smokers on average developed schizophrenia a year earlier.