Materials and Links

Global Surveillance of Antiretroviral Drug Safety 

Background:

Considerable progress has been made in providing global access to antiretroviral therapy.  However, the effectiveness of treatment programs risks being compromised by problems related to toxicity, intolerance, drug-drug interactions, diversion, counterfeiting, inappropriate drug utilization and other issues.  These are examples of common phenomena affecting individual patients and public health, but not identified before clinical use and scarcely systematically reported in countries with limited infrastructures for monitoring of drug use and safety.

This meeting was convened on June 11, 2010, in Washington, DC, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Meeting participants included representatives from governments, global health organizations, industry, regulatory agencies, foundations, academia and implementers.

Meeting Goal:

Multiple efforts are underway to improve antiretroviral drug (ARV) surveillance systems in low- and middle-income countries.  All stakeholders must be engaged to ensure collaboration.  The goal of this meeting is to convene these stakeholders to achieve synergy.

Objectives:

1. To discuss new developments in drug safety surveillance
2. To provide perspectives on current experiences in ARV safety surveillance in resource-limited settings
3. To determine commitments from organizations supporting global surveillance activities
4. To identify opportunities to achieve sustainable systems for global surveillance of ARV drug safety

Project Managers:

Nyasha Bakare, MD, MPH