I suggest you consult the web site of the WHO Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring (Uppsala Monitoring Centre) www.who-umc.org From this site you get information about the WHO Medicines Safety Programme and links to many of the currently 142 national pharmacovigilance centres connected to this programme.

Hi there Coolen,

I would say no, pharmacovigilance is not applied appropriately in most countries, specifically in developing countries. The term itself is vague at best in so many contries, and in others it maintain to be a lable in ministries of health and the likes. In other countries with well established health care services pharmacovigilance appear to be fully applied and the practice itself is well developed. One of the best such practices I have seen exists in New Zealand . The NZ Pharmacovigilance centre operates 3 programs in this country (see; http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/121-1283/3286/). As Marlene says, the problems in developing countries remains to be poor understanding and poor training and utilization of the service and poor reporting when such programs exist. The service should be a prominent part of health policy programs worldwide.

I am working for the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency and we have a seperate Department for Pharmacovigilance.

In Austria physicians, veterinarians, nurse and other people working in this field have to report adverse events electronically or written to the agency by law.

Till few weeks it's also possible that patients can report adverse events.

Maybe you can find further information on the webpage: http://www.basg.gv.at/

In our country (Belarus) there is also a very poor reporting of ADR as in other developing countries. The collecting center exists, but all work is in the beginning, there is a poor understanding and lack of motivation to do that.

Though there was a seminar few years ago provided by ISoP, that organize such trainings through all over the world (http://www.isoponline.org/ - by the way, this web site also could be useful).

I'f you are interested in training opportunities in pharmacovigilance I'd like to refer to the WHO pharmacovigilance toolkit: www.pvtoolkit.org and to the 61 free video-taped pharmacovigilance lectures available on this site:

http://www.who-umc.org/DynPage.aspx?id=116851&mn1=7347&mn2=7252&mn3=7323&mn4=7634

I also attach a document in which a number of quality training opportunities of different aspects of pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology are mentioned

In my country , we had to begin studies about of pharmacovigilance but for the vision of a lot of Doctors we had blocked in our projects, in El Salvador.

We will hope change that vision later or soon.

In Colombia a lot of pharmacovigilance activities are developed, and the national program is leaded by INVIMA, the drug regulatory agency for Colombia. If you require more information please send me a message, to present you a paper that explains this in more detail.

Hi all!

What about Russia?

All the subjects in my country must provide information about ADR to the regional centres of pharmacovigilance or directly to Regulatory Agency (Roszdravnadzor), but just as in another countries our doctors don't pay enough attention to this problem. In a large hospital (1025 beds), where I've been working since 2006, we organised our "local" pharmacovigilance and there are about 500 reports in our own database to the present.

Thanks Stenn for the interesting links!

couldn't say it better than sten olsson.

You might also want to look at the international society of pharmacovigilance (www.isoponline.org).

Pharmacovigilance in your neighbours (réunion) is coordinated by the Bordeaux regional Centre I believe. You could also ask them (www.pharmacoepi.eu) if you have any specific question. Maybe we should try to organize a meeting in your area?

Hi all,

Thanks u all for your responses, Nicholas Moore, thanks for this helpful info, I was nt aware of the neighbour country system. it wud be a great idea of having a meeting ard here.

I recomended the next website:

http://www.who-umc.org/DynPage.aspx?id=116851&mn1=7347&mn2=7252&mn3=7323&mn4=7634

There are some free video-taped about pharmacovigilance.