Background Adverse reaction reporting is an important component of New Zealand's pharmacovigilance activities. The Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring (CARM) in Dunedin is New Zealand's national monitoring centre for adverse reactions. It collects and evaluates spontaneous reports of adverse reactions to medicines, vaccines, herbal products and dietary supplements from health professionals in New Zealand. Currently the CARM database holds over 50 000 reports and provides New Zealand-specific information on adverse reactions to these products, and serves to support clinical decision making when unusual symptoms are thought to be therapy related. Dangers/Warnings For severe and life threatening reactions CARM records warning or danger alerts for medicines for individual patients against their unique National Health Index number which is accessible to health care facilities in New Zealand. This means that when the patient is next seen and the system is accessed (usually at a hospital), the information is displayed and incorporated into that facilities 'alert' mechanism aimed at the safe use of medicines. Analysis CARM undertakes regular analysis of the database to identify any significant patterns of adverse reactions and the results may suggest that relevant prescibing advice should be emphasised or changed. These results are considered by the Medicines Adverse Reactions Committee. This government appointed committee makes recommendations to MedSafe which has the responsibility for implementing strategies that should result in the safer use of the medicines concerned Collaboration CARM as New Zealand's national monitoring centre, collaborates with and pools anonymised data, together with other national monitoring centres, into the database of the World Health Organisation's International Drug Monitoring Programme based in Uppsala, Sweden. Through this network, New Zealand is able to keep abreast of the latest concerns around drug safety as they emerge, whilst access to the international database serves to complement the local experience of adverse reactions to medicines. Reporting Continued quality reporting of adverse reactions to medicines by practitioners in New Zealand is the crucial cornerstone of the programme and there are ongoing efforts to sustain and improve reporting rates, which currently rank as the best internationally. IMMP Whilst CARM's activities are focused on spontaneous reports, a related activity, the Intensive Medicines Monitoring Programme (IMMP) intensively monitors new medicines using a method called presciption event monitoring and operates in close collaboration with the spontaneous reporting programme, supplementing the adverse reactions database.

NEWS Reporting Form for Immunisations Influenza Vaccine Reporting

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