Washington, DC, 20 January 2022 (PAHO) - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has added new functions and resources to its pharmacovigilance dashboard for COVID-19 vaccines. The dashboard was developed to support the regulatory processes of vaccine introduction and surveillance of vaccine safety, consolidating information on various components in a single tool.
Direct access was recently incorporated, with consolidated information on the different vaccines, including general information, vaccine efficacy, efficacy on COVID-19 variants, and recommendations from entities of reference. The general information section offers detailed information on each vaccine: other names, platform, WHO/SAGE age indications, doses, administration, vial presentation, diluent, adjuvant, preservative, shelf life, storage conditions (freezing, refrigeration, and conservation of the vial in use).
In the section on efficacy, information is presented for each vaccine with regard to indicators such as risk of contracting COVID-19, symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 infection, mortality, and transmission. The recommendations section summarizes information on potential signs of safety problems with COVID-19 vaccines, along with recommendations regarding myocarditis/pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and booster doses.
To facilitate the reading of information on each vaccine and for quick access to key data on efficacy, safety, and specific recommendations from the main entities of reference, this new version of the dashboard allows access to information in table format, which can be downloaded as PDF documents.
In addition, visual guides were included, with each vaccine's specifications for conservation (freezing, refrigeration), thawing, inverting, administration, vial use, and disposal of syringes, vials, and personal protective equipment (PPE).
The updates section, available on the dashboard's homepage, includes the latest news on COVID-19 vaccines, allowing quick access to this information.
