E-DRUG: WHO Pharmacovigilance Toolkit
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Dear Colleagues,
It is my pleasure to announce the launch of the WHO Pharmacovigilance
Toolkit. This has been developed by the WHO Collaborating Centre for
Pharmacovigilance Training and Advocacy, Accra, Ghana, under the close
supervision of the WHO Advisory Committee on Safety of Medicinal
Products (ACSoMP), the Uppsala Monitoring Centre, Sweden and the WHO
Quality and Safety of Medicines (QSM) Programme, Geneva.
The Toolkit can be accessed at www.pvtoolkit.org
The Toolkit brings together existing resources (WHO publications and
other resources with relevant permission) that are needed for the
practice of pharmacovigilance (PV). Its main objective is to bring,
within easy access of all PV practitioners in low- and middle-income
countries, current information, guidelines and practical advice on PV,
under 'one roof'. The Toolkit contents have been carefully screened and
selected by a Content Review Committee (based at the UMC), and then
approved and endorsed by the WHO ACSoMP.
The idea of the Toolkit was conceived in 2010, as a necessary
deliverable in the WHO-Global Fund pharmacovigilance strategy. The
Toolkit will help implement the minimum PV requirements for any country
implementing Global Fund (GF) grants, as identified by WHO and the GF.
The Toolkit development was supported with modest funds from the GF,
UNITAID and the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) programme.
The Toolkit should be considered a 'living resource'; the WHO
Collaborating Centre in Ghana will continue to populate it with new
resources as and when they become available. At present there is a main
/ general PV section, and two other dedicated sections, one on PV of
antimalarials and on PV in HIV care. The malaria chapter was developed
with input from various malaria experts, while the HIV PV section is
based on work of the Copenhagen HIV Programme (CHIP), as a partner in
the EC funded, WHO-UMC led project on Monitoring Medicines.
In addition to this website, the Toolkit is available on USB drives in a
similar format, for use in areas with poor internet connectivity. The
Toolkit is currently available in English, and efforts are underway to
have it translated into other languages.
We hope that you will find this Toolkit useful. And we hope to hear from
you, to keep this Toolkit current and relevant for your work. For
additional information please contact:
Prof Alex Dodoo,
Director,
WHO Collaborating Centre for Advocacy and Training in Pharmacovigilance
University of Ghana Medical School
Email: alex.dodoo@who-umc.org
You could also send your queries / comments to:
info@who-umc.org, or to
info@pvafrica.org
With best wishes for a fulfilling year in 2012,
Dr Shanthi Pal
Pharmacovigilance Programme Manager
Quality Assurance and Safety: Medicines
Department of Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies
World Health Organization
Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: + 41 22 791 1318
Website: http://www.who.int/medicines
E-mail: pals@who.int