Belize achieves full membership in WHO drug monitoring program
Key Points(5)
- Belize has become a full member of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Programme for International Drug Monitoring (PIDM), a milestone that strengthens the country's ability to monitor the safety of medicines and protect public health.
- The achievement follows years of work by Belize's Ministry of Health and Wellness to strengthen its national pharmacovigilance system, regulatory oversight and post-marketing surveillance of medical products, with technical support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
- Belize joined the program as an associate member in 2020.
- Full membership recognizes Belize's capacity to detect, assess, understand and prevent adverse effects and other medicine-related problems while contributing data and expertise to the WHO's global drug safety network, coordinated by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC).
- In recent years, Belize has expanded its regulatory and surveillance activities, strengthened its Drug Inspectorate Unit, participated in regional pharmacovigilance networks and taken steps to improve monitoring of the quality and safety of medicines throughout the supply chain.
Belize has become a full member of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Programme for International Drug Monitoring (PIDM), a milestone that strengthens the country's ability to monitor the safety of medicines and protect public health.
The achievement follows years of work by Belize's Ministry of Health and Wellness to strengthen its national pharmacovigilance system, regulatory oversight and post-marketing surveillance of medical products, with technical support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Belize joined the program as an associate member in 2020.
Full membership recognizes Belize's capacity to detect, assess, understand and prevent adverse effects and other medicine-related problems while contributing data and expertise to the WHO's global drug safety network, coordinated by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC).
PAHO said it has supported Belize through a range of technical cooperation initiatives, including strengthening post-marketing surveillance, improving adverse event reporting systems, training health professionals, enhancing data exchange and interoperability, and expanding participation in regional and international regulatory networks.
A key factor in securing full membership was Belize's improved ability to exchange safety data through the Data Bridges project, a PAHO initiative that connects pharmacovigilance databases across the Americas with VigiBase, the WHO's global database of individual case safety reports managed by the UMC.
Belize has also established direct reporting to global surveillance platforms through VigiFlow/VigiBase and the Global Surveillance and Monitoring System (GSMS), allowing the country to contribute to regional and global efforts to identify potential medicine safety concerns and respond to emerging risks.
In recent years, Belize has expanded its regulatory and surveillance activities, strengthened its Drug Inspectorate Unit, participated in regional pharmacovigilance networks and taken steps to improve monitoring of the quality and safety of medicines throughout the supply chain. The Ministry of Health and Wellness has also undertaken regulatory self-benchmarking and capacity-building initiatives to further strengthen the national regulatory system.
As a full member of the PIDM, Belize will have greater opportunities to collaborate with countries around the world, access international medicine safety analyses and contribute to the global detection of medicine-related risks.
PAHO noted that strengthening national regulatory systems remains a regional public health priority. In 2022, member states endorsed a policy to strengthen national regulatory systems for medicines and other health technologies, encouraging countries to improve post-marketing surveillance and increase reporting of adverse events, as well as incidents involving substandard and falsified medical products, through WHO reporting systems.
