Pharmacovigilance Newsletter July 2010

Anonymous

Dear fellow healthcare professional,
Thank you for the warm & positive response to the newsletters. The WHO promotes global drug safety through its International Drug Monitoring Programme. Through collaboration, Member States & the WHO work together to identify possible relationships between the use of a drug & adverse effects. Nearly 100 countries (including Jamaica) have systems in place to report adverse drug reactions to the database managed by the WHO Collaborating Centre, the Uppsala Monitoring Centre. When signals of drug safety problems emerge, WHO shares the results with all Member Countries.
I recently had the pleasure of delivering a presentation on the topic “ Do No Harm- Adverse Reactions to Anti-Retroviral Drugs” to participants of the 7 th annual HIV Management Workshop , sponsored by the National HIV/STI programme in association with ERTU-CHART.
Below are some highlights from my presentation.
Drug hypersensitivity reactions occur 100 times more commonly in HIV-infected patients. These individuals show an increased frequency of common cutaneous diseases (psoriasis, atopic dermatitis ,seborrhoeic dermatitis), drug rashes & in general, hypersensitivity reactions, compared with the HIV-negative population.
Hypersensitivity associated with Trimethoprim sulfamethoxazole is estimated to occur in approximately 5% of HIV-negative patients compared with up to 60% or higher of HIV- infected patients.

Questions to be asked when assessing a patient with a suspected drug induced reaction
Is there any previous history of a drug-induced reaction?
What were the characteristics of the previous reactions? At what stage during therapy did the current reaction occur?
What were the clinical manifestations of the drug induced reaction & could these manifestations help determine which drug was responsible for the reaction?
Were there any laboratory abnormalities that could be explained by a drug induced reaction?
When the drug was discontinued, did the reaction cease?
At the time of reaction, which drug (s) was the patient taking, when were they started & what were the doses of each drug?
Does the patient have any other medical problems?
Have you noticed any unusual reactions to drugs in your patients? If so, tell us about it! Remember you don’t have to be sure, just be suspicious. We all have a role to play in making drugs safe to use.