Recently, Belize became an associate member of the WHO Program for International Drug Monitoring (WHO PIDM). The WHO PIDM helps countries with pharmacovigilance related activities, including provides software and analytical tools to report and analyze adverse events, provided the country can demonstrate to WHO that it has set up key elements for a successful pharmacovigilance program, including a national center, and can submit a certain number of high quality adverse event reports to WHO.

This accomplishment is the result of a focused effort on the part of the government of Belize and PAHO to strengthen regulatory functions including registration, pharmacovigilance, and post market surveillance. Regulatory strengthening in small countries like Belize can be especially challenging because small countries have fewer people to staff their agencies, small markets that do not incentivize strong industry engagement with regulation, and often times limited financing.

Belize’s strategy to improve its regulatory system makes use of new regional systems available to CARICOM countries, including CARPHA’s Caribbean Regulatory System, and its market surveillance reporting platform, VigiCarib. Belize has become a leader in CARICOM on regulatory strengthening initiatives.

Additional information: https://www.who-umc.org/global-pharmacovigilance/who-programme-for-international-drug-monitoring/