Damascus-SANA
The severity of the unwanted effects of drugs ranges from skin rashes to hospitalization and death, according to the World Health Organization, which states that 10 percent of the products reported cause this toxic reaction to patients, while the remaining 90 percent fail to treat the disease, which causes severe consequences as well, as she puts it.
According to its figures, the Ministry of Health database documents 629 cases of undesirable effects of drugs since the activation of the pharmacovigilance system four years ago, where doctors contributed to reporting the largest portion of them with 44 percent, followed by pharmacists with 28 percent, while the remaining percentages were reported by nurses, patients or their relatives.
The head of the pharmacovigilance unit in the Directorate of Drug Control at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Linda Hussein, indicated to SANA that the side effects of the reported drugs were recorded in greater proportions in women by 60 percent compared to men, while Damascus governorate came as the first source of reports with 50 percent, followed by Suwayda 10 percent and Tartous 6 percent .
Syria joined the World Health Organization’s pharmacovigilance program and the Uppsala Global Center for Drug Monitoring in October 2018, when the Ministry of Health launched an awareness campaign in its hospitals about the concept of vigilance and the importance of reporting side effects of medication as a first step, after which it will move to doctors and pharmacists, ending with patients.
Side effects can appear when taking any medicine, but most of them are not dangerous and do not necessarily appear on every patient who takes this medicine, according to what Dr. Linda Hussein explained, who indicated that side effects are known and expected often and noticed immediately after taking the medicine, such as cases of allergies and some of them take time It is longer and its severity varies from patient to patient.
The head of the vigilance unit pointed out that the medication leaflet attached to the medication includes basic information that the patient needs about the amount of the dose, side effects and contraindications to its use, but it may not contain all the information. status and problem solving.
The pharmacovigilance unit in the Directorate of Drug Control is responsible for monitoring the side effects of drugs that are marketed and sold, receiving reports from health care professionals and patients about the undesirable effects of drugs and documenting them in a database for analysis and detection of any problem related to the use of the drug, as stated by Dr. Linda, indicating that there is an official in charge of pharmacovigilance In every general hospital, it monitors cases that may appear.
Linda states that the main objective of all pharmacovigilance unit procedures is to reduce the side effects of drugs, raise the degree of drug safety and raise awareness in this regard.
The Vigilance Officer at the Ministry of Health warned of monitoring side effects, some of which are dangerous, caused by taking the drug without the advice of the specialist doctor or pharmacist, calling for adherence to the recommendations related to the use of the drug and not to stop taking it without referring to the doctor who prescribed it.
Pharmacovigilance is the science and activities related to discovering, evaluating, and understanding harmful effects or any other problem related to medicines and their prevention. The Ministry of Health implemented the pharmacovigilance system through a specialized unit in the Drug Control Directorate in 2018, where it worked to achieve the conditions of the global program related to the appropriate place and human cadre and became affiliated with it in the same year .
Malik Abdo
