Towards robust pharmacovigilance surveillance systems

Public health officials are currently tasked with the role of regulating medicines, both during the approval process and post-market surveillance. While several successes of pharmacovigilance systems exist, pharmacovigilance systems in place are inadequate for protecting the public, as they are slow to show causation. We argue that while pharmacovigilance system were instrumental in the recall of AstraZeneca and Moderna mRNA Covid vaccines for young people during the Covid-19 pandemic, they were inadequate in identifying several clear safety signals which should have led to their withdrawal from the market. Pharmacovigilance systems have much room for improvement, both in terms of data management, accessibility, and use. We propose several guidelines for pharmacovigilance systems to take to improve their efficacy and their ability to protect the public.