Pacific Island Pharmacovigilance: The Need for a Different Approach

Many Pacific Island countries (PICs) are recipients of funding support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). However, most of these countries cannot be expected to meet Global Fund and World Health Organization (WHO) minimum requirements for a functioning pharmacovigilance (PV) system. We argue that a different approach is required to move PV forward in such countries. Although the long-term aim is to build adequate national PV capacity, we propose an approach in which resources are focused initially towards ensuring a proper system for the reporting of "problems with medicines" such as substandard and counterfeit products. The limited health system resources in these countries require that PV will be supported by some of the organizations also giving funding aid for the supply of medicines.