Pharmacy and Medicines Regulatory Authority (PMRA) joins national medicines regulators from 82 countries across the globe and their stakeholders in taking part in this year’s Medicines Safety Week Social Media Campaign dubbed #MedSafetyWeek. This an international campaign led by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring. The campaign is supported by members of the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA).

The seventh annual #MedSafetyWeek is running until 13 November to encourage everyone to report suspected side effects of medicines. This year’s global campaign focuses on the key role of every healthcare professional, patient, and caregiver who reports a suspected side effect hence contributes to safe use of medicines.

All medicines may cause side effects in some patients, so there are steps in place to continuously monitor their safety after 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, such as the PMRA, operate systems to detect and analyze those side effects and prevent harm to future patients.

By reporting suspected side affects you are actively participating in identifying emerging safety issues, so that PMRA can take action when necessary and protect you and others from harm. Every report made by a patient, a healthcare professional, or a caregiver 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 minimize risks.

Anyone (patients, guardians and healthcare professionals) can report suspected side effects of medicines on Medsafe-360, a mobile phone based USSD platform accessible on Airtel and TNM networks by dialing *360#. Medsafe-360 is free of charge, works on both smart and ordinary phones and does not require internet connectivity.