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The following message is courtesy of Dr. Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium. Dear Friends, In the attached paper, Tharmalinga and colleagues share some interesting findings from the national regulatory authority in Sri Lanka. Doing secondary research on data routinely collected for regulatory oversight, the authors investigated the patterns of the medicines ...

Dear Friends,  in the attached Synthesis Report issued from the World Bank Group, Wang, Marquez, Figueras and Bieliaieva discusses the importance of Pharmacovigilance in contributing to building up resilient systems. Please share it with any potentially interested colleagues.   Pharmacovigilance (PV) is an essential component of a health (pharmaceutical)  system, particularly in the first decade ...

The following message is courtesy of Dr. Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium. Ref (1) Dhakal N, Gyanwali P, Humagain B, BC R, Jha N, Sah P, et al. (2023) Assessment of quality of essential medicines in public health care facilities of Nepal: Findings of a nationwide study. PLOS Glob ...

The following message is courtesy of Dr. Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium Ref. Barr RD, Furneaux R, Margottini L, Eden TOB. The international scandal of defective asparaginase: A blight on children with cancer. Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2023 May 23:e30403. doi: 10.1002/pbc.30403. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37218459. Dear Friends, Another ...

The following message is courtesy of Dr Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium. Ref: Do NT, Boupha P, Newton PN, et al. The quality of antiretroviral medicines: an uncertain problem. BMJ Global Health 2023;8:e011423. Dear Friends, We are not very much used to discussing quality problems for antiretroviral medicines (ARVs), ...

The following message is courtesy of Dr Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium References: Schier J, Chang A, Kapil V. Medication-Associated Diethylene Glycol Mass Poisoning – A Preventable Cause of Illness and Death. N Engl J Med. 2023 Mar 2. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2215840 Bastani P et al. Acute Kidney Injury Among ...

The following message is courtesy of Dr. Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium Ref. Chiumia FK, Nyirongo HM, Kampira E, Muula AS, Khuluza F (2022) Burden of and factors associated with poor quality antibiotic, antimalarial, antihypertensive and antidiabetic medicines in Malawi. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0279637 Ref. RPQ/REG/ISF/Alert N°1/2023. Substandard (contaminated) ...

The following message is courtesy of Dr. Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium. Ref. Stolbrink M, Chinouya MJ, Jayasooriya S e al. Improving access to affordable quality-assured inhaled medicines in low- and middle-income countries. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2022 Nov 1;26(11):1023-1032. Dear Friends, inhaled medicines for asthma and chronic ...

Ref. CIOMS Special Newsletter “Fighting antimicrobial resistance”, November 2022 Dear Friends, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), including bacterial resistance to antibiotics, is among the major concerns for global health. This short newsletter of the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) provides an overview of the situation, and a list of key-references for further reading. The ...

Ref. Jenkins D, Diallo C, Payne M. Detecting falsified oral contraceptives by visual assessment and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (350-2500 nm): the need for supplementing traditional pharmacopeia techniques and the public health implications. Heliyon. 2022 Oct 1;8(10):e10837. Dear Friends,  Today I wish to share a contribution from David Jenkins and colleagues from FHI 360. For those ...