E-DRUG: New World Medicines Situation Chapter published on Pharmacovigilance
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To All E-Druggers,
I am very pleased to announce the publication of a new World Medicines Situation chapter on Pharmacovigilance. The chapter was written by Shanthi Pal from the
Department of Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies, WHO, Geneva, Alex Dodoo from the University of Ghana Medical School in Ghana, Aukje Mantel from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Sten Olsson from the Uppsala Monitoring Centre in Sweden. To download the chapter please go to the URL http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/m/abstract/Js18771en/ that includes the following abstract.
Pharmacovigilance (PV) aims to improve patient safety through the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects and other drug related problems;
- PV, as a discipline, has seen tremendous growth over the past decade, but in response to different needs and priorities worldwide. While ' high-burden diseases' have been the focus in some settings, elsewhere this growth has been driven by a demand for transparency and access to information;
- Recent years have seen a trend towards Good Pharmacovigilance Practice (GPP), particularly in industrialized countries to assure standards and innovations in the collection, management, analysis and use of medicine safety information - with patient safety as the ultimate objective;
- Many resource-limited countries will require additional support (technical and financial) to build PV capacity to effective levels;
- Despite 40 years of PV, patients worldwide continue to be affected by preventable harm from medicines. It is important to analyse and learn from these events;
- For PV to be effective there is a need for timely and responsible communication of the available evidence, involving all stakeholders;
- Many new PV initiatives are being undertaken. But it is important that these efforts are not duplicated and that scarce resources are used wisely.
- To download the chapter directly go to http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/documents/s18771en/s18771en.pdf
For more information on other chapters go to http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/en/index.html or the Table of
Contents at http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/wmsr_table/en/index.html
Thank you
Richard
Richard Laing (Coordinator)
Medicine Information and Evidence for Policy,
Department of Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies
World Health Organization
CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland
Tel 41 22 791 4533
Fax 41 22791 4167
E-mail laingr@who.int