Achieving patient engagement in pharmacovigilance: from high-income countries to lower and -middle-income countries with focus on Africa.

Introduction: Patient engagement in pharmacovigilance (PEP) has been shown to improve information on adverse drug reactions (ADRs), which may not be found in reports from healthcare professionals. This review shows that there is paucity of information on PEP in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly Africa. It provides insights into PEP in high-income countries (HICs) compared with Africa to help identify the disparities and system challenges in Africa.

Promising Practices in Capacity Development for Health Supply Chains in Resource-Constrained Countries.

Performance gaps in health supply chains in low- and middle-income countries contribute significantly to inefficiencies and underperformance of their health systems. Some significant factors hindering the performance of supply chains in low and middle-income countries include low human resource capacity and capability, weak structures for monitoring supply chain performance, weak in-service and pre-service training programs, chronic underfunding, lack of transparency and an overdependence on obsolete methods, like manual data gathering, record-keeping, and analyses. Although proven health supply chain strengthening techniques exist, the level of adoption of these practices has varied across countries, resulting in multiple capacity gaps and underperforming supply chains.

Medication errors by caregivers in the homes of children discharged from a pediatric department in Ghana.

Background: Medication errors (MEs) by caregivers at home are a cause of morbidity and mortality, shortly after discharge from the hospital.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the rate and types of MEs at the homes of children discharged from a hospital in Ghana and to explore the factors associated with these errors.

Design: This was a cross-sectional study of infants and children discharged from the hospital to review medication administration practices.

Evaluation of pharmacovigilance systems for reporting medication errors in Africa and the role of patients using a mixed-methods approach.

Background: Reviewing the epidemiological profile of medication errors (MEs) reported by African countries and the systems put in place to report such errors is crucial because reporting plays an important role in improving patient safety. The objectives of this study were to characterize the profile of spontaneously reported MEs submitted by African countries to VigiBase; the World Health Organization (WHO) global database of individual case safety reports, describe systems in place for reporting these errors, and explore the challenges and facilitators for spontaneous reporting and understand the potential role of patients.

Methods: In the present study, we used, a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design involving a quantitative review of ME reports over a 21-year period (1997-2018) and qualitative interviews with employees from African countries that are members of the WHO Program for International Drug Monitoring (WHO PIDM).