Enliven: Pharmacovigilance and Drug Safety

Pharmacovigilance (PhV) was initiated to prevent adverse drug reactions and other adverse drug events, in response to drug use tragedies such
asphocomelia. As such, PhV has been long in existence in North America and Europe. However, in some countries the practice of PhV is relatively new.
For example: In Namibia the Therapeutics Information and PhV Centre (TIPC) was established in 2008 by the Ministry of Health and Social Services
(MoHSS), with technical support from Management Sciences for Health. Following the establishment of TIPC the MoHSS embarked on training
in-service health care workers as a strategy to promote PhV. Training in-service HCW is a costly venture, and its continuous implementation may be
interrupted. The training of medical, pharmacy, and nursing students is a more sustainable strategy for promoting PhV, by virtue of its long-term nature. In
cognizance of the importance of PhV and the need to promote it, the School of Pharmacy (SoP), Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Namibia
included a module on PhV as part of the curriculum to train Bachelor of Pharmacy students. While didactic face to face training has been used to train
PhV, the SoP utilised Self-Directed Learning. This report contains the aims of pharmacovigilance training at the SoP; how the module was structured;
how the sessions were conducted; recommendations on how to make PhV training practical; and how to broaden student coverage on PhV training.