Assessment of pharmacovigilance guidelines in the Southern African Development Community: A document review

Lack of harmonization in pharmacovigilance (PV) practice in resource-limited states in Africa has led to differentiation and marginalization, thus creating an environment where weak or absent PV systems may benefit from regional guidelines.

To compare the PV guidelines of Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states to international guidelines and identify areas for improvement for aligning PV practice within the SADC region.

We utilized a 73-item checklist to assess the PV guidelines of the SADC member states. Checklist parameters were rated using binary scoring.

Only seven (Botswana, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) of the 16 SADC member states had guidelines to assess. Of these, only four had supporting legislation. All seven national medicines regulatory authorities (NMRA)'s guidelines required reporting of local serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Four NMRAs implemented device vigilance; none specified submission timelines for ADRs associated with substandard or falsified medicines. Only three NMRAs required electronic transmission of individual case safety reports in the E2B format. Five NMRAs mandated safety monitoring during interventional clinical trials. Five NMRAs required aggregate reporting through periodic safety update reports. Only two NMRAs required submission of the development safety update report. Regarding risk management, four NMRAs required notification of actions taken by foreign NMRAs and four NMRAs expected to review Dear Healthcare Professional Letters before distribution by the marketing authorization holder.

Areas for improvement of guidelines to establish common process standards and allow for synchronized submissions of comparable data to SADC NMRAs are provided.