The University of the Western Cape (Schools of Public Health and Pharmacy) and its collaborators from Ministries of Health and National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) from four countries – Namibia, Eswatini, South Africa and Zimbabwe, invite you to a public event which will focus on learnings from a three-year project Strengthening pharmacovigilance and regulatory capacities in four Southern African countries (SPaRCS) and ideas for future possibilities for strengthening systems for medicines quality and safety in the region.

The project used a participatory action learning, and co-creation approach to develop personal and institutional capacities of the NRAs in the four countries. Key activities included: mapping and review of pharmacovigilance systems across the four countries, learning exchanges and thematic workshops on topics including approaches to strengthen adverse drug reaction reporting and analysis, clinical trials oversight and the development of training materials for community health workers on adverse drug reaction reporting. The project was generously supported by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership.

The programme will include a panel of participants of the project:

Hazel Bradley, UWC, School of Public Health

Michelle Viljoen, UWC, School of Pharmacy

Star Khoza, UWC, School of Pharmacy

Liberty Chirinda, Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe

Mukesh Dheda, National Pharmacovigilance Centre, NDOH, South Africa

Frieda Shigwedha, Therapeutic Information and Pharmacovigilance Center (TIPC), Namibia

Mudipanu Mbinga, Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Eswatini