Tue, 04 Jul 2017 10:30:25 +0000
BY CHIKUMBI KATEBE
ONE of the major components of having an effective medicines regulation system is to have in place a mechanism for monitoring the safety of medicines, Minister of Health Chitalu Chilufya has said.
Dr Chilufya said it required a functional pharma-covigilance system for early detection, reporting and assessing adverse drug reactions and product quality defects in the country.
Delivering the speech on behalf of Dr Chilufya at the launch of the Adverse Drugs Reaction (ARDA) mobile application for reporting adverse drugs reaction, Ministry director of clinical care and diagnostic services, Dr Nthele said early detection, reporting and assessing drug reaction was important for effective response.
“This requires a functional pharmacovigilance system for early detection, reporting and assessing adverse drug reactions and product quality defects in the country,” Dr. Chilufya said
He explained that the establishment of a regional centre at the Copperbelt University was to spearhead pharmacovigilance activities in the northern region of the country and about 500 health workers have since been trained. He further explained that 1451 adverse drug reactions have been reported to the NPVU since 2010 which had resulted in important regulatory decisions such as withdrawal and recall of medicines with quality defects.
Dr Chilufya disclosed that those reports had also been recorded into the World Health Organization database in order to contribute to the global medicines safety.
He has since called on all health workers to take keen interest in monitoring the effects of medicines and ensure that any suspected adverse reactions were reported to the national pharmacovigilance for improved services.
“This innovation is coming at an opportune time when we are going to place additional people on anti-retroviral therapy through the test and treat program. Monitoring of adverse drug reactions in such a program is critical for success of this program,” he said.
