03 Mar PAVIA project’s achievements in Eswatini gain international recognition

The PAVIA project, led by Prof. Frank Cobelens, was recently featured in a publication of the Uppsala Reports highlighting the evolution of the project since its beginning within the Kingdom of Eswatini.

Funded by the European Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), PAVIA focuses on improving pharmacovigilance not only in Eswatini but also in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. Coordinated by AIGHD, PAVIA’s main objective is to strengthen the national reporting and assessment systems targeted at multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and any adverse reactions to this family of drugs.

In Eswatini, the project has helped start the National Pharmacovigilance Center (NPC) where staff is recruited and trained in pharmacovigilance. Since January 2022, the NPC has submitted more than 1170 case safety reports to Vigibase, the WHO global database of reported side effects of medicinal products. The increase in reported case safety accounts is significant and the article praises the PAVIA project stating it could not have been done without it.

The “PAVIA project has helped in streamlining the medicine safety surveillance activities in the context of introducing new drugs for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis,” as well as serve as a model assessment system for other health programs targeted towards HIV and Malaria across other Sub-Sahara African countries.

We congratulate the Eswatini partners on their great successes and achievements and look forward to a fruitful final year of the project.

Read more about the PAVIA project in the Uppsala Reports here.