Medicines safety during COVID-19

As the medical and scientific community work tirelessly to find suitable treatments for COVID-19, pharmacovigilance research is essential to understanding the safety and efficacy of treatment alternatives.

Pharmacovigilance and COVID-19 

Our work as a global community of pharmacovigilance professionals is more important than ever. As the medical and scientific community work tirelessly to find suitable treatments for COVID-19, the efforts of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring and other pharmacovigilance stakeholders are vital to the success of public health initiatives across the globe. 

To collect sufficient information about the efficacy and adverse drug reactions of treatments used against COVID-19, it's crucial that all adverse events are recorded and reported as quickly as possible.

On this page, we have collected useful information and guidelines for carrying out pharmacovigilance work during COVID-19. 

The page will be updated when there is more information that we can share publicly.

How to capture adverse event reports for COVID-19 treatments

UMC provides guidance on what information to record and how to record it for analysing adverse event reports linked to COVID-19 treatments.

Read the guidelines

How to find adverse event reports linked to COVID-19 in VigiLyze 

This guidance contains useful reminders and tips on search techniques that may be relevant to searching VigiLyze for adverse event reports on COVID-19 treatments. 

Read the guidelines

COVID-19 safety updates in VigiLyze

Only accessible to members of the WHO PIDM, VigiLyze is UMC’s main communications channel for COVID-19, where we share regular reviews of new safety data. WHO also shares the reviews in its “WHO Regulatory Update”.

Log in to VigiLyze

Further reading from UMC

Optimizing safety surveillance for COVID-19 vaccines (Nature Reviews Immunology)

Evolution of the current infrastructure for surveillance of vaccine safety will be essential to meet our commitments to the public in the deployment of a vaccine (or vaccines) to COVID-19.

Read the comment


Pharmacovigilance in the age of COVID-19 (Uppsala Reports)

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most disruptive events in modern history and a serious threat to global health. But in the rush for treatments and vaccines, how do we keep sight of the need to ensure safety?

Read the article

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