By Asmau Ahmad
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said that it had trained 564 health workers on med safety tool for E- reporting of Adverse Event Following Immunisation (AEFI).
The state Coordinator, Nasiru Mato, who stated this in an interview said that as vaccine-preventable infectious diseases continue to decline, people had become increasingly concerned about the risks associated with vaccines.
He said that the trained health officials were drawn from both primary and secondary health facilities.
Mato described AEFI as an untoward medical occurrence which follows immunisation but does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the usage of the vaccine.
He said that vaccine-associated adverse events might affect healthy individuals and should be promptly identified to allow additional research and appropriate action.
He said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had established a Global Advisory Committee on vaccine safety in order to respond promptly, efficiently, and with scientific rigour to vaccine safety issues.
The coordinator said that NAFDAC plays a vital role in ensuring that all medicines available to the consumer are safe, qualitative and efficacious adding that the safety of medicines is critical in any healthcare system
“Continuous monitoring has been identified as a centre point and critical toward the attainment of this goal.
“Core stakeholders and healthcare providers at all levels have an important role to play in this regard, hence, the need to remain abreast with the skill on the use of the globally accepted electronic-based *MED SAFETY* tool for reporting of adverse event following immunisation.
“It is in view of this that NAFDAC in conjunction with the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET), and the Kaduna State Primary Care Board (KSPHCDB) conducted refresher hands-on practical training sessions for some of their personnel.
Mato said that the training was for Disease Surveillance Notification Officers (DSNOs), Monitoring Evaluation Officers (MEOs), Local Government Cold Chain Officers (LCCOs) and Local Government Immunisation Officers (LIOs) in the 23 local government areas (LGAs) of Kaduna State.
