WHO launches new web-based toolkit to monitor drug safety worldwide

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched a freely accessible web-based toolkit that will help all countries improve their drug safety monitoring.

The new tool known as Pharmacovigilance Toolkit which is the monitoring or surveillance of the safety of drugs in use in medical practice, consists of a package of tools and a description of the supporting processes that are needed for the effective conduct of pharmacovigilance.

“The main aim of the toolkit is to ensure that pharmacovigilance practitioners in low- and middle-income countries get access to the best information on the processes and activities involved in pharmacovigilance from a trusted source,” said the WHO in a statement January 19, 2012.

The statement said the pharmacovigilance activity may include active research as well, such as cohort event monitoring or the keeping of pregnancy registers, among many methods intended to discover the earliest possible signs of any kind of problem with medicines or vaccines or mass programmes such as de-worming.

The toolkit is managed and maintained by both the WHO and the University of Ghana Medical School.

By Ekow Quandzi