CEPSA delivered two podium presentations at the 2026 International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP) Africa Chapter Meeting

At the 2026 ISoP Africa Chapter Meeting, held in Windhoek, Namibia, from 18 – 21 May 2026, Dr Nicolas Praet and Dr Ebenezer Wiafe delivered two podium presentations on strengthening the pharmacovigilance ecosystem in Africa through CEPSA’s initiatives.

Written by: Dr Ebenezer Wiafe, Dr Nicolas Praet and Dr Hazel Bradley

The meeting gathered pharmacovigilance experts on the theme ‘‘Patient Safety First: Strengthening Continental Pharmacovigilance Collaboration through the African Medicines Agency’’. Dr Nicolas Praet presented on ‘‘Building a Sustainable Pharmacovigilance Ecosystem in Africa: Achievements and Future Directions of the Centre of Excellence for Pharmacovigilance in Southern Africa (CEPSA)’’ whilst Dr Ebenezer Wiafe’s presentation was on ‘‘Mapping Pharmacovigilance Capacity in Southern Africa: Preliminary Findings from a Survey to Inform Targeted Pharmacovigilance Capacity Strengthening’’. These presentations focused on advancing the African pharmacovigilance agenda and contributed to discussing “Opportunities and key challenges for enhancing patient safety in Africa’’.

The programme of the meeting is available at:

The conference also provided valuable opportunities to engage with international experts in pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology, including members of CEPSA’s Scientific Board (Prof Hannelie Meyer (SMU), Prof Ushma Mehta (UCT), and Dr Alemayehu Duga (Africa CDC)).

The CEPSA delegation (Dr Ebenezer Wiafe, Dr Nicolas Praet and Dr Hazel Bradley) used this opportunity to engage with key pharmacovigilance stakeholders from several national regulatory authorities, including Ghana FDA, the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe and Botswana Medicines Regulatory Authority, as well as colleagues from the African Medicines Agency, the Uppsala Monitoring Centre, academia and the pharmaceutical industry.  In attendance were some alumni from the first CEPSA workshop (https://soph.uwc.ac.za/news/cepsas-first-pharmacovigilance-training-workshop/). During their time in Namibia, the CEPSA delegation also had profitable meetings with the School of Pharmacy (Department of Pharmacy Practice) of the University of Namibia and the Therapeutics Information and Pharmacovigilance Centre (TIPC) of the Namibia Medicines Regulatory Council.