Innovative approaches for improving drug & vaccine safety

Overview

Webinars on South-South sharing of experiences on innovative approaches for improving drug and vaccine safety

“Many relevant initiatives are being implemented to strengthen Pharmacovigilance practices in African countries thanks to WHO and to international organizations. These initiatives are still fragmented and require a sharing of experiences and pooling of expertise. Developing South-South collaboration and cooperation will help Pharmacovigilance take a new turn for the benefit of patients in Africa”

Professor Rachida Soulaymani
Director, Poison Control Center & Pharmacovigilance, Morocco

"Countries of the WHO AFRO region have all it takes to reach maturity level 4 as per the WHO Bench Marking Tool. Our role in it as WHO staff is to let the country colleagues know what is expected from them. Once they get it clearly, they are good at finding local solutions in achieving great results. Meetings like this one, on sharing experiences, are key in enabling neighbours to pick from one another what can make countries move faster. "

Dr Amavi Edinam
Vaccine Safety and Quality Officer, WHO Regional Office for Africa

Two virtual conferences (June 1 & 8, 2022) were convened by TDR in collaboration with its partners with the aim for national pharmacovigilance authorities from ADP-focus countries and other countries to share their experiences and initiate inter-country dialogue that will ultimately strengthen their capacity for pharmacovigilance and drug and vaccine safety monitoring.

Building upon TDR’s work with the ADP to strengthen safety monitoring capacity of ADP-focus countries through innovative training approaches and implementation research on the use of new digital tools, the webinars are meant to improve the scale up of these interventions as well as others from non-ADP countries and reach out to a wider range of LMICs.

Objectives included:

Fostering exchanges between countries that implemented innovative training strategies on PV and countries that have not yet done so.
Fostering exchanges between countries with regards to capacity strengthening activities developed specifically in the Covid19 context.
Providing information on best practices, training opportunities and regional support
Fostering exchanges between countries that introduced digital tools for ADR notification, especially those that piloted the introduction of the MedSafety App or USSD coding system and countries that have not yet introduced a digital tool for ADR reporting to better understand practical implementation challenges.
Fostering exchanges between countries on how they adapted notification tools in the context of the Covid19 pandemic.

Webinar documents

Webinar report: South-South sharing of experiences on innovative approaches for strengthening drug & vaccine safety monitoring