"This application is intended for health and pharmacy industry workers to report adverse drug reactions or drug side effects to the BPOM," Head of the agency Penny K. Lukito informed here on Tuesday.
The cases of atypical progressive acute kidney injury in children that were reported some time ago served as a lesson on the importance of drug use safety monitoring, she said.
The e-MESO mobile app aims to reach more users and can be accessed at any time and anywhere using a cellphone device, she added.
According to Lukito, the reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADR) and drug side effects (ESO) has become an important indicator that shows that drug safety monitoring in a country is proceeding well.
However, at the global level, the ADR/ESO reporting in Indonesia is still categorized as very low with less than 10 thousand reports per year.
"In the future, we expect an increase in ADR/ESO reporting, whether they are received from health workers or from the pharmacy industry," Lukito said.
Health workers, as the frontliners in the provision of health services, play an important role in detecting and reporting issues related to drug usage, she added.
"Hospitals and other health service facilities also have the responsibility to ensure patients' safety," she said.
Thus, the implementation of pharmacovigilance should become a part of health services to ensure patients' safety.
Moreover, the pharmacy industry also has a part in monitoring the safety of the drugs that it produces and distributes. This has been mandated by BPOM’s Regulation No. 15 of 2022 on pharmacovigilance implementation.
“The pharmacy industry is obligated to conduct pharmacovigilance by developing systems, structures and activities, including pharmacovigilance reporting to BPOM," Lukito said.
The general public is also a part of the system, thus people need to be educated on drugs and aspects that they must watch out for, including ADR or ESO.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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