Success Story
CARPHA Medicines Quality Control and Surveillance Department’s Post Market Surveillance Programme is enhancing Medicines/Patient Safety in the Turks and Caicos Islands
The Pharmacy Unit within the Ministry of Health and Human Services (MoHHS) in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) began a transformative journey in 2019 with the establishment of the national pharmacovigilance programme. The programme known as the Turks and Caicos Islands Pharmacovigilance Programme (TPP) was developed with a view to strengthen the country’s medicines regulatory framework and by virtue improve the effective monitoring of drug/patient safety. Importantly, the TPP emanated from the National Pharmaceutical Policy (NPP) that includes a commitment to establish a policy strategy and robust mechanisms to ensure that only safe, effective and quality-assured medicines are utilised in the TCI. Notably, this resulted from a need to:
- Implement procedures to register medicines and suppliers of medicines
- Combat the importation and use of substandard and counterfeit medicines
- Analyse and test medicines imported and used in the TCI
- Monitor and report adverse drug reactions