WHO Technical review meeting on country experiences in ARV toxicity surveillance

Übersicht

 WHO convened a technical review meeting in Geneva on 7 and 8 November 2013, on surveillance of antiretroviral (ARV) drug toxicity within antiretroviral treatment (ART) programmes. The aim was to review progress and lessons learnt from country experiences and identify solutions.

The meeting brought together countries from various regions where the following approaches have been implemented:

• cohort event monitoring for ARV drugs in Belarus and the United Republic of Tanzania;
• targeted spontaneous reporting in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), South Africa and Viet Nam;
• targeted monitoring of key toxicities within existing cohorts in South Africa and Viet Nam; and
• retrospective chart reviews in Côte d’Ivoire and Ukraine.

These experiences covered national project implementation, e.g. as in South Africa since early 2003 or pilot project implementation as initiated in 2011 under a collaborative project between WHO and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [BMGF] in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Lao PDR, Ukraine, United Republic of Tanzania and Viet Nam.

Progress and lessons learnt from the various approaches to toxicity surveillance were reviewed during the meeting. Despite the many challenges identified, there was clear evidence that the various approaches increased the collection of toxicity data within ART programmes, and that the data arising from these surveillance approaches could meaningfully inform treatment policies and improve patient care.