Uganda integrates digital tools to track medicine side effects in HIV treatment

The National Drug Authority (NDA) is incorporating digital pharmacovigilance tools into Uganda's Consolidated HIV Guidelines to improve how patients and health workers report adverse drug reactions.

Dr Helen Byomire Ndagije, the Director for Product Safety at the NDA, explained that these digital tools aim to provide faster information to help the government monitor medicine safety more effectively. While Uganda has a national pharmacovigilance system, the agency currently sees a lower rate of reporting than what the World Health Organization recommends.

To address this, the NDA is working with the Ministry of Health to include specific platforms like the MedSafety App, a WhatsApp reporting line, and the VigiFlow and VigiMed systems into official guidelines. The move follows a trial led by Dr Ronald Kiguba of Makerere University, who conducted a study across 367 HIV clinics in Uganda. The research compared clinics using traditional reporting methods against those using the MedSafety App, a tool originally developed by the European Medicines Initiative.

The study found that using the app significantly increased the number of reported suspected adverse drug reactions. The NDA uses this data to make scientifically sound decisions about whether to withdraw specific medicines from the market. Dr Ndagije noted that the authority must first confirm a medicine actually caused a reaction before taking action, as some issues may only affect a single batch.

By digitizing these reports, the NDA aims to move research findings into active policy to make the medical environment safer for patients.