07 Mar 2021

Ministry of Health and Wellness, through Botswana Medicines Regulatory Authority (BoMRA), is on course to ensure that Batswana are protected from the devastating effects of unsafe, substandard and fake medical products.

Speaking during the launch of Princess Marina Hospital adverse drug reaction monitoring center recently, Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Edwin Dikoloti said guarding against usage of fake medical products had been done through the National Pharmacovigilance Programme.

He said the centre came at the right time when the country was on the eve of rolling out the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

Monitoring, safety and effectiveness of vaccine was important throughout the vaccination campaign, he said.

Dr Dikoloti emphasised the importance of understanding the advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of medicines in the population, cautioning that medication could at times cause adverse reactions.

He revealed that  BoMRA had to date established six fully operational centers in different hospitals across the country with 162 health care professionals in pharmacovigilance and reporting of adverse drug reaction.

The centres, he said, played a pivotal role in strengthening the pharmacovigilance programme which would go a long way in strengthening BoMRA’s pharmacovigilance advocacy, awareness, and surveillance monitoring and training.

He said the centers would further expand all activities promoting the safe use of all medicines and vaccines within both public and private health care sectors.

Minister Dikoloti said it was pleasing that BoMRA had actively engaged all stakeholders in establishing medicine safety programme as part of the strategy in building a national pharmacovigilance programme.

For his part, BoMRA’s pharmacovigilance and clinical trials director, Dr Parthasarathi Gurumurthy, defined pharmacovigilance as the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problem.

It could assist in generating knowledge to facilitate the rational use of medicines, especially in paediatrics where medicines were less likely to have been extensively studied, he explained.

Stressing the role of monitoring centres, Dr Gurumurthy expressed optimism that the Princess Marina centre would serve to support and encourage reporting as well as  systematic collection and analysis in an effort to understand the burden of drug induced illnesses in the patient population.

BoMRA ensures patient safety by communicating with healthcare professionals and by monitoring marketing authorisation activities in order to assess compliance with pharmacovigilance obligations.ENDS