Materials and Links

Background:

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) and other drug related adverse events have been well documented in the developed world but has not been well documented in the resource-limited setting. Access to ART has increased greatly in the RLS with the availability of funds from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, as well as scale up of programs such as PEPFAR and from Medecins sans Frontieres.

There is a urgent need to derive data from the RLS as the adverse event data from the developed world may have not be completely relevant for the RLS due to genetics, diet, use of traditional medicines and distribution and use.

Drug safety monitoring is an essential element for the effective use of therapy and for medical care.

Objectives:

To address how to carry out long-term monitoring of treatment related adverse events in the resource-limited setting (RLS).

Status:

The first workshop was held on November 13th in Dublin, Ireland. A second workshop was held on March 22-23 in Madrid, Spain. A meeting report for both workshops will be available shortly.

The Steering Committee for this project includes:

Bill Powderly, M.D. - University College Dublin, Professor of Medicine and Therapeutics

Cissy Kityo, M.D. - Joint Clinical Research Centre, Kampala

David Cooper, M.D., D.Sc - National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research

David Pizzuti, M.D. - Johnson and Johnson

Elly Katabira, MBChB, FRCP Edin - Makerere University Medical School

Ian Weller, M.D. - Royal Free and University, Department of Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Jens Lundgren, M.D., DMSc - Copenhagen HIV Programme (CHIP)

Judith Currier, M.D., M.Sc - UCLA Care Center

Shabir Banoo, M.D. - Medicines Control Council of South Africa