PRESS RELEASE

March 26, 2009

United States Supports Medication Safety Program for Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam, 26 March 2009 – Vietnam has launched new initiatives to build awareness of the necessity of medication safety and to train medical practitioners on how best to prevent and report cases of adverse reactions to medicines.

Building on earlier work by the Ministry of Health, the Hanoi University of Pharmacy organized a pharmacovigilance consensus workshop yesterday for government representatives and officials in the fields of pharmacy and medicine, academia, hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry, donor organizations and health-related international agencies. The meeting was sponsored by the U.S. Government through U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Pharmacovigilance refers to activities relating to the detection, evaluation, understanding and prevention of adverse reactions to medicines, or other medicine-related problems. In 2008, the Drug Administration of Vietnam received over 2,000 reports of suspected adverse effects, mostly related to commonly-used medicines such as antibiotics, heart medicines, and painkillers.

Recognizing the importance of setting up a national system for collecting and monitoring adverse drug reactions and for providing drug information, the Government of Vietnam tasked the Ministry of Health’s Drug Administration Department and the Hanoi University of Pharmacy to develop a National Drug Information and Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Center.

Following the workshop, the USAID-funded RPM Plus program began a three-day training-of-trainers introductory course on pharmacovigilance and medication safety for 50 staff members from 17 Vietnamese public health programs and academic institutions. The training will strengthen the understanding of pharmacovigilance and medicines safety in Vietnam among health practitioners.

###