"Pharmacovigilance is the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other medicine-related problem" - As defined by WHO
This Program for International Drug Monitoring was established by WHO as a result of the thalidomide disaster detected in 1961. Pharmaceutical manufacturing companies are required by law in all countries to perform clinical trials, testing new drugs on people before they are made generally available in the market. At the end of 2010, 134 countries were part of the WHO Pharmacovigilance (PV) Programme.
So overall, pharmacovigilance covers the following:
Besides the above, many other issues are also relevant to pharmacovigilance such as follows:
Pharmacovigilance has been developed by WHO solely with the intention of responding to the special needs. Over the last decade, it has been increasingly recognized that the scope of pharmacovigilance needs to be extended more , much beyond the present signals of safety concerns. Globalization, consumerism, the resulting expansion in free trade and communication across national and international borders, and increasing use of the Internet have all contributed to a change so that people can access information on all types of medicinal products. So pharmacovigilance is indeed important and the changing patterns in drug use require a shift in the approach to pharmacovigilance so that it can respond to the prevailing patterns of drug use within society in a better way.
In today's advanced age of medicines, science and technology, there has been an increasing public awareness of safety issues related to medical products. This has led to an increased importance of pharmacovigilance.