Monitoring of global alerts for thirteen medicines in the period 2014-2020

Pharmacovigilance is based on the need to monitor and prevent possible problems caused by medications. Once national and international entities identify a problem related to medications, they issue alerts directed at health professionals, patients and the general population. In this research, national and international alerts were reviewed from 2014 to 2020, of thirteen drugs used in the treatment of common, disabling and/or fatal diseases that affect a large part of the Costa Rican population, taking alerts issued in pharmacovigilance centers databases worldwide. Health alerts show the identification of a problem and communicate the action taken by the regulatory body, which varies according to the severity of the problem. In Costa Rica, health alerts issued about drug-related effects are based on alerts issued by international regulatory bodies such as WHO and FDA, in addition to this, the Costa Rican Ministry of Health adapts the information from these alerts to the Costa Rican population. However, of the ten alerts analyzed, four were not issued in Costa Rica.