Medicines, Vaccines and Health Technologies

Biodata:

Adriana M. Ivama is the Sub Regional Advisor of Medicines, Vaccines and Health Technologies at Caribbean Programme Coordination Office, appointed in January 2009. She is national from Brazil and a former Health Surveillance and Regulation Specialist of the National Agency of Health Surveillance (Anvisa)/Brazilian Ministry of Health. Her previous experience includes being a researcher and a professor of Public Health at the University of Londrina (Brazil).

She has a PhD in Public Health, Health Legislation and History of Sciences from the University of Alcala (Spain) and specializations in International Health from the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), Health Surveillance from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Brazil) and Teaching Methodology from the State University of Londrina (Brazil). She initially graduated with the degree in Pharmacy.

Her experience in public health includes pharmaceutical policies and regulation, development of human resources, project management, planning and evaluation.

She has collaborated with CPC Office on the Medicines and Health Technologies Project for the last 2 years and worked in the PWR Brazil.

Area of work:

Main duties are:

  1. to implement the European Union/World Health Organization project "Partnership on Pharmaceutical Policies in the Caribbean; aligned with global and regional strategic orientations in medicines, vaccines and health technologies into the PAHO/WHO and Caribbean governing bodies";
  2. to promote networks, partnerships, inter-country cooperation and commitment of stakeholders, with support of PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centres and mobilizing experts;
  3. to assist the Caribbean Region and CARICOM Secretariat in the development of sub-regional framework on pharmaceutical policy, regulation and indicators assessing implementation and impact on access to medicines and strengthening these issues at national level.
  4. to provide technical support to participating countries on issues of access to medicines & vaccines.
  5. to strengthening capacity in pharmaceutical supply management, identifying needs based on assessments.

Main Current Initiatives:

The EU project has the following strategic objective:

  1. Pharmaceutical Policy: To provide evidence basis and to support the development and the monitoring of pharmaceutical policies
  2. Access and Innovation: To support the strengthening of integrated supply systems
  3. Quality and Regulation: To support the strengthening of core functions of NRAs and sub-regional regulatory framework
  4. Rational Use of Medicines: To support the strengthening of core-function of RUM

The project includes activities as follows:

  1. To coordinate with Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat and its Technical Advisory Group (TAG) efforts to improve Pharmaceutical Policy, Medicines Supply, Medicines Regulation, rational use of medicines and Intellectual Property Legislation and Patents in Caribbean countries;
  2. To facilitate participation of Caribbean Countries in the PAHO/WHO Strategic Fund mechanism to facilitate access to medicines to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria;
  3. To support the Caribbean Procurement Supply Management Network (CARIPROSUM), composed by National Authorities responsible for Medicines Procurement and PAHO/WHO as technical secretariat; sharing information and harmonization of legislation, standards and procedures used by the Caribbean Procurement Authorities; to facilitate the implementation of the standard indicators of performance;
  4. To encourage and to support the Caribbean countries to participate in the evaluation of the Pharmaceutical situation (level I and II) and to provide feed back about the results to national counterparts.
  5. To support the strengthening of medicines regulation at sub-regional and national levels, facilitating the participation of Caribbean countries in the activities of the Pan American Network for Drug Regulatory Harmonization (PANDRH) and to support them to implement the PANDRH recommendations related to: Good Manufacturing Practices, Good Clinical Practices, Drug Classification, Combat Drug Counterfeiting, Pharmacovigilance, Drug Registration, Good Laboratory Practices, traditional medicines
  6. To support Caribbean Pharmacovigilance Network (Vigicarib) composed by National Medicines Regulatority Authorities and focal points of Pharmacovigilance and PAHO/WHO as technical secretariat; sharing information and harmonization of legislation, standards and procedures and to encourage countries to report adverse drug reaction using the software Vigiflow;
  7. To support the introduction of core elements into the health courses and to support the strengthening of Pharmaceutical Education.

Workshop and Upcoming Events:

Sub-regional activities

  • Workshop “Strengthening of Medicines Regulation in the Caribbean”, July, 22nd - 24th, 2009.
  • Training in Good Laboratory Practices (August, 2009), Jamaica;
  • Workshop on Prevention and Combat of Counterfeit Medicines in the Caribbean (TBD), St Lucia;
  • Caricom Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meetings (September 2009 - TBC)
  • CARIPROSUM meeting (TBD);
  • VIGICARIB meeting/II Sub regional meeting on Pharmacovigilance (TBD);
  • Meeting of cooperation among Caribbean countries and Argentina (TBD);
  • Sub- regional training program on Intellectual Property and Public Health for Public Health/Law/Medicine students (TBD), September;
  • Distance Learning Course on Rational Use of Antibiotics, March-December;
  • Distance Learning Course on HIV/AIDS and ARV (2nd edition), TBD;

National activities

  • National Seminar on Counterfeit Medicines, April, Dominican Republic;
  • National Workshop on Good Pharmacy Practices and Ethical Legislation (TBD), Dominican Republic, July
  • Workshop on Medicines Selection, 2-3 July, Barbados;

Outcomes of Technical Cooperation

  • REGIONAL NETWORK FOR PHARMACEUTICAL PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY MANAGEMENT “CARIPROSUM” 2008 Annual Meeting, Belize City, February 27 and 28th, 2008;
  • WHO/WHO. Situation on Prevention and Combat of Counterfeit Medicines in the Caribbean Countries. Barbados: OCPC-PAHO/WHO, 2008;
  • WHO/WHO. Pharmaceutical Situation in the Caribbean Countries. Barbados: OCPC-PAHO/WHO, 2009 (draft);
  • Bulletins of Rational Use of Medicines