THE Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) has urged citizens to hastily report any side effects of medicines to prevent harm.
MCAZ yesterday launched the seventh annual MedSafety week which will run until November 13.
MCAZ spokesperson Davison Kaiyo said all medicines may have side effects in some patients, hence the need to take safety precautions before they are placed on the market.
“The purpose of safety monitoring is to gain more information about known side effects and find out about new ones. Regulators operate systems to detect and analyse those side effects and prevent harm to future patients,” Kaiyo said.
“Pharmacovigilance and Clinical Trials Division, which is the National Pharmacovigilance Centre, under the MCAZ, collects, organises, and investigates reports of suspected side effects. Since it was created, it has helped identify several safety issues which were not previously recognised as being linked to a particular medicine until the MCAZ received information from reports.
“Every report made by a patient, a healthcare professional, or a carer plays a key role in gaining more knowledge about the benefits and risks of medicines in clinical use and allows action to be taken to minimise risks,” he said.
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