Access to medical products has increased considerably in Africa in recent years, but safety monitoring systems haven’t exactly kept pace and many African countries still struggle to address safety issues. We sat down with Eleni Aklillu and Abbie Barry of the PROFORMA project to learn about their efforts to strengthen pharmacovigilance capacity in East Africa – especially within public health programmes.

Tune in to find out:

• How comorbidities and genetic variation affect drug safety monitoring
• Why pharmacovigilance centres should strengthen their ties with academia
• How to apply the PROFORMA model elsewhere 

Want to know more?

• Low- and middle-income countries like the PROFORMA target nations face unique challenges in establishing robust pharmacovigilance systems, as described in this comprehensive review.
• PROFORMA’s baseline assessment of national pharmacovigilance systems in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania identified gaps and laid the groundwork for targeted interventions.
• Their subsequent assessment of pharmacovigilance capacity within the neglected tropical diseases programmes highlighted the urgent need for collaboration between those programmes and the national pharmacovigilance centres.
• You can read about PROFORMA’s accomplishments in more detail on Uppsala Reports and on the PROFORMA website, which also lists the consortium’s publications and upcoming events.

For more on the influence of genetic factors on drug response, revisit this interview with UMC’s pharmacogenetics specialist Qun-Ying Yue or this Uppsala Reports Long Read on pharmacogenomics research in Africa.

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