A pharmacovigilance centre for monitoring and inspecting drugs is to be set up by December 2016.
According to a GINA press release, Director of the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD), Marlan Cole, made this announcement on Tuesday at a Pharmacovigilance awareness workshop at Duke Lodge, where the GA-FDD in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) is creating sensitisation among health officials.
Pharmacovigilance, the release stated, is the practice of monitoring the effects of medical drugs after they have been licensed for use, especially in order to identify and evaluate previously unreported adverse reactions.
According to the release, Guyana is currently not a member of the WHO reporting system, which means there is no system for nurses at health facilities to report any adverse reaction to drugs that have been administered to patients.
There is also no tracking system that would allow for one to identify the production date, batch number and other necessary information that help the identification process.
The release quoted Cole as pointing out that, “… a pharmacovigilance centre will allow us to ensure that drugs are of the requisite quality.”
According to the release, Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr Karen Cummings noted that, “Pharmacovigilance is crucial to the Ministry of Public Health’s work in ensuring that Guyanese benefit from the best quality medicines making them safe, efficacious and hence the need for ongoing surveillance.”
The ongoing workshop is aimed at providing the health officials with the necessary information relating to pharmacovigilance and their role in the implementation of the programme, the release stated.
