This report discusses the importance of pharmacovigilance (PV) in contributing to building up resilient health systems. It is based on and summarizes the findings of a review of available literature on the topic and relevant case studies focusing on a set of country and regional experiences....

Building capacity in countries to conduct thorough surveillance of the use of all newly authorized drugs and vaccines, both brand name and generic, is a critical "public good” investment to ensure that drugs work correctly and that their health benefits outweigh their known risks. Korea's...

The Spanish System of Pharmacovigilance (SSPV) started its activities almost 40 years ago, in 1985. Of particular interest to others considering various options for developing pharmacovigilance systems is the fact that this case study highlights an example that built from the ground up and...

Although indispensable for improving health outcomes, medicines and vaccines or their administration and use can produce adverse effects, requiring continuous vigilance to ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks. Monitoring the safety of the use of marketed medicines and vaccines, also known...

The ability to oversee and monitor the use of all newly authorized drugs and vaccines, both brand name and generic, is critical to ensure that they work correctly and that their health benefits outweigh their known risks when used in daily clinical practice. This process, known as...

The objective of this report is to examine the development of pharmacovigilance (PV) in Ghana and illustrate the role it plays in the health system, and more recently, during the COVID-19 emergency response. It concludes by offering some relevant lessons for building PV capacity in other low-and...

This report focuses on the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), one of the three multi-national public health agencies in the world, that commenced operations on Jan 1, 2013, with the aim of delivering the functions of five previous regional health institutions through one platform for...

Medicines, vaccines, medical devices, and blood are commonly used to treat disease. Medicines deserve a special focus because almost any medical visit ends with at least one prescription. So, monitoring the safety and effectiveness of therapeutic treatments and procedures is crucial at both the...

The response of the government of the Republic of Korea to COVID-19 has been heralded as among the most successful. In the first two years of the pandemic, the government was able to keep the size of the outbreak relatively small and the death toll relatively low. Although the number of COVID-19...

This report reviews the pharmacovigilance system of the European Union (EU) mapping out its structure and processes with any eye to features that may be of particular interest to decision makers in other regions as they weigh options related to creating a regional pharmacovigilance architecture...