Welcome & introduction

Federica Santoro 0:15

In pharmacovigilance, context is everything. Harmonising how we work is important, but where we work matters just as much. Are we in Brazil or in Botswana? In a packed metropolis or a remote village? Those local factors shape our priorities and ultimately our safety monitoring systems and must be factored in. My name is Federica Santoro and this is Drug Safety Matters, a podcast by Uppsala Monitoring Centre where we explore current issues in pharmacovigilance and patient safety. Joining me today are two of my colleagues: Salvador Alvarado, pharmacovigilance regional officer, and Matthew Barwick, communications officer and video producer at UMC. We discussed the shared and unique challenges that pharmacovigilance professionals around the world face, the benefits of a global collaboration, and how a new film series by UMC is shedding light on all that. Matt also shared tips on communicating science on camera, so make sure you stay tuned till the end. I hope you enjoy listening.

Federica Santoro 1:38

Hi, Salva and Matt, and welcome to Drug Safety Matters. Salva, first time on the pod. How does it feel?

Salvador Alvarado 1:46

Excellent. Thank you for the invite. I always listen to the podcast, so it's a really great pleasure and honour to be here, Fede.

Federica Santoro 1:52

Thank you very much. And Matt, you're a familiar face and voice. You've been on the pod once before, but I'm glad to have you back. How are you today?

Matthew Barwick 2:00

I'm really good. I think it was some years ago now we had a conversation about science communication. So yeah, it's great to be back and talking about science communication again.

How a global PV collaboration came about

Federica Santoro 2:09

Excellent. I look forward to our conversation. And this is in some ways a special episode because we're going to discuss both pharmacovigilance and communication, as you said, Matt. And the jumping point for our discussion is a film series that you produced, Matt, with help from Salva and others. And the series is called the WHO PIDM in Focus. It highlights pharmacovigilance challenges and success stories from around the world. And now, the WHO PIDM that's in the title of the series and that we're going to talk about extensively today is the Programme for International Drug Monitoring. And what it is, it's basically a global pharmacovigilance network that UMC has been operating on behalf of the World Health Organization for nearly 50 years now. That's really in a nutshell. It doesn't even begin to describe the value of this international collaboration. So, Salva, I'll let you do the honours and describe the programme in more detail. Tell us: how big is it, and also what does it mean for a country to be a member?

Salvador Alvarado 3:20

Yes, the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring was founded in 1968. Everything started when a new medicine was produced in the 60s, the active ingredient thalidomide, to prevent difficulties to sleep and nausea in pregnant women. The thing here is that the medical doctors, the obstetricians started to realise that the babies of the women that were taking these medicines were born with problems in the upper limbs and the lower limbs, in a medical entity defined as phocomelia. And that's how the programme started. So, it was an obstetrician from Australia that first realised, "Oh, but I have given this medicine to these women, and then their kids are starting to experience this problem". So he published this in a scientific paper, and that scientific paper was read far away in the UK by other obstetricians that realised, "Okay, but I have a similar situation here in my country". So they talked to each other, and then after a more serious investigation, they realised that it was actually related to the administration of this new drug, thalidomide. So, as a consequence of that, the World Health Organization said, "We need to survey the medicines and vaccines that are administered in our population". So that's why in 1968 the World Health Organization created the Programme for International Drug Monitoring. And then since 1978, as a result of an agreement between the World Health Organization and the Swedish government, we were founded – Uppsala Monitoring Centre, as the WHO Collaborating Centre – to support the activities of this programme. And now, in April 2026, well, we have 160 full members and 22 associate members. And what it means is that a full member has shown to have a well-established pharmacovigilance (medicines and vaccines safety) system, and that most importantly share anonymised but clinically relevant data to the World Health Organization database for adverse events of medicines and vaccines, that is called VigiBase, and that is hosted here at Uppsala Monitoring Centre. Why is this important? Well, because it allows the national health authorities responsible for surveying medicines and vaccines in their markets to know what is going on in other parts of the world and then see if, well, the problem that is being observed in Australia is still relevant in the UK, and then take evidence-based regulatory action to prevent further damage that might be caused by a medicine or a vaccine.

Federica Santoro 6:03

From a terrible tragedy, then, an incredibly useful international collaboration was born.

Telling the PIDM story on camera

Federica Santoro 6:09

Now going back to the film series, Matt, what was the motivation for it? And why video specifically to tell these stories?

Matthew Barwick 6:19

I think, you know, our work in the programme is at the core of what UMC does. We've always communicated about the work in the PIDM, but this series is part of a broader initiative to kind of highlight the work that UMC does, in collaboration with WHO, to support countries and with a focus on the kind of tools and the training that we provide to members of the programme. I think with this series we wanted to take a slightly different approach to filmmaking than maybe we've done in the past. We often have a presence at these big meetings, where members of the programme come together. I think as a filmmaker, what you feel when you go to these events, is fantastic to see, and it's obviously very important for people to come together. But when you talk to them about pharmacovigilance, what you feel is that the story is elsewhere. And of course, when you work in an organisation like UMC that has this global reach and, you know, most of the world is represented in the WHO P I DM. So as a filmmaker, of course, you want to show that, and to speak to people from all around the world, and it was just a really interesting opportunity to go to where they are. You know, they're talking about how pharmacovigilance is operating in Africa or South America or Asia, and it was part of this initiative to actually go to these places and actually see for ourselves and speak to people on the ground. Not just people that maybe have the opportunity to attend these conferences, but people that are working at different levels of the healthcare system in different countries. So, you know, by going to the country, this gave us the opportunity to bring in a a wider diversity of voices and perspectives. And I think, you know, just being a filmmaker and wanting to make a film, you know, you have to think about what makes a film interesting to an audience. So within this series, we've been able to go outside of those meeting rooms, to go into hospitals, pharmacies, to show a little bit of the country, the landscape, the culture as well. So that hopefully makes it more interesting and attractive to a viewer as well.

Federica Santoro 8:14

Absolutely. And I think you've absolutely succeeded with capturing the colour of these individual countries. And on that topic, what countries and what pharmacovigilance topics did you cover in the series?

Matthew Barwick 8:28

Yeah, so when we first started this series, we started, you know, Salvador has given us an overview of what the programme is and why it was established. That's kind of what we did, in a very condensed way, in the first film that was "Building a global community". So that was basically just introducing anybody who didn't know what the programme was. But then after that we wanted to, kind of like, move down into some other topics. The second film was looking at vaccine safety, and that was produced just after the pandemic, so it was obviously an issue that was of high importance, and UMC was doing a lot helping countries to develop their vaccine safety surveillance systems. We wanted to then go a little bit deeper and to look at specific contexts, specific countries basically, and how pharmacovigilance was operating there and what UMC is doing in these countries, to help countries develop their pharmacovigilance systems. So then we... I think it was in 2024, we went to Botswana and then Colombia as well. We also went to Brazil last year. In all those places, I guess the intention was to not just show these trainings and not just show workshops. We wanted to actually go and show a little bit of the healthcare systems themselves and the people that are working within them. So the next one will feature Namibia. So yeah, we're just trying to develop the series in that way, showing different contexts and how PV is operating in these different places.

Shared challenges and harmonised solutions

Federica Santoro 9:57

I think the beauty of the PIDM is that knowledge and solutions can be shared between members, and that's because to some extent pharmacovigilance is the same across borders. So if you take the countries featured in the films, obviously they are very different countries, but when it comes to pharmacovigilance practice, they are more similar than you'd think. What are some of the challenges that are shared across borders, Salva? No, it is true. It's a very good point. I think the idea of the programme is to try to standardise as much as possible the pharmacovigilance processes, so everyone does the pharmacovigilance tasks in the same way to facilitate joint analysis, joint collaboration. However, as Matt was pointing out, there are different needs that each country has, right? Botswana might have some priorities, Colombia might have others, Brazil might have others, and then you don't only have the priorities, you also have the geographical distribution. Pharmacovigilance must be done in remote areas as well. When you go and administer a vaccine in a remote population, you need to be able to know if the vaccine was potentially causing a problem, right? Or if it's a big city with hundreds or millions of people, you also need to be able to capture all these possible adverse events. So I guess, geographics, the political situation in the country, the priorities also take a big role. So we have to take into account the country's differences, and we try to do it to the best of our abilities when we work with them. I work mostly with Latin America, but we have other colleagues at UMC that support the African region, Southeast Asia, Europe. And of course, some countries need more of our support than others, but we try to do our best to address the needs of everyone in the same way and in alignment with international good pharmacovigilance practices, right? And here we have two important organisations that support us in this task. It's, of course, the World Health Organisation that recently, in late 2025, they realised that scenarios are different. So they launched the WHO Global Smart Pharmacovigilance Strategy that precisely aims to support this way of working in alignment with local needs, but by creating a framework that is flexible. Not all the national centres have the resources to monitor everything. But if we work in a similar way, then we can trust what someone else is doing and rely on their decision-making to be able to contribute to medicines and vaccine safety not only in my country, but my work can also be recognised and used by someone else to improve medicines and vaccine safety. So, as we can see, yes, we try to standardise processes, to harmonise, to rely on each other, but we also have to take into account local needs. And I think you mentioned there were two organisations that help us standardise. Was there a second one you were going to mention?

Salvador Alvarado 13:07

Yes, the other one is ICH, the International Council for Harmonisation, and it's an international consortium that gathers reference regulatory authorities from different geographical sites around the world. And their aim is precisely that, it's to create guidelines, standards that harmonise all processes around the life cycle of a medicine or a vaccine. So I think WHO and ICH guidelines are very important for our work together with the countries. And the countries recently have recognised that we have, in Latin America at least, we have a growing interest by the regulatory agencies in adapting to these international standards, and this definitely facilitates our work as well.

Local challenges in Brazil and Colombia

Federica Santoro 13:51

Right. So you said that countries face specific obstacles because of their cultural, geographical, socioeconomic factors, and more. Could you give us a few examples of the unique challenges the countries featured in the films face? And obviously, your expertise is in Latin America, so we'd be happy with examples from that part of the world.

Salvador Alvarado 14:18

Yes, of course. As we were saying, we were in Colombia and in Brazil. Both of them have been full members of the WHO PIDM programme for a long time. Starting with Brazil, I guess you can imagine the size of the country. It is the biggest country in Latin America, and the size of the country is a challenge, in the sense that it difficults the pharmacovigilance presence to reach all the areas, and that's why it's important to... well, that the tools that they use to monitor, facilitate this type of work in rural, remote areas, no internet, right? So, this is something that we try to contemplate. If we go to Colombia, we have a similar scenario as well. They both share a part of the Amazonia, the Amazon forest, and the populations that live in those areas consume medication or are administered vaccines. So, in that sense, geographical questions, population matters, Brazil having the biggest population in Latin America, so it's a lot of people, a lot of medicines produced and consumed. There are a lot of cases that need to be processed, but there's little people that can do it, right? So, in this sense, the most ready the reports arrive to the national centre, the easier their job to monitor, analyse, and do decision-making. So that's why the international standards about using internationally accepted terminology for coding the reactions, international terminology to standardise medicinal product information such as WHO Drug, IDMP, all of the usage of that terminology facilitates a lot the work of the national centres that usually have few people, and then the people that are available many times rotate frequently. So then you have to have training and education so the new personnel have already some material to put themselves up to speed into the great task that they have.

Pride, purpose and global impact

Federica Santoro 16:19

Let's talk a little bit about countries' achievements and success stories. I think we've spoken enough about the challenges, so I'd like to switch gears a little bit. The films highlight plenty of success stories. What did you find most interesting or perhaps most surprising on your visits?

Matthew Barwick 16:38

I think, having worked here at UMC for the past seven years, you know, we're based in Uppsala, which is a relatively small city in Sweden. I think it's really interesting to have the opportunity to travel to these places. You know, we've just talked about Brazil, one of the biggest countries in the world, and to see that tools that are produced and worked on here, in this small city in Sweden, are the foundation of the pharmacovigilance system of this huge country so many thousands of kilometres away. I think that's really inspiring, to see how much impact our work has around the world. You know, you have the opportunity to interview and talk to so many passionate and dedicated people around the world who... they love what they're doing and they love being able to contribute to medicines safety, not just in their countries, but they also feel like they're contributing to something beyond that. I remember one interview that we conducted in the Criança Children's Hospital in Brasília, in Brazil. We spoke to two young people, or young women, who were working as pharmacists there. And one of them, Victoria, was telling us about the kind of pride that she felt in contributing to knowledge around paediatric medicines by recording the adverse events from medications and then contributing to the global database. So she felt a real pride not just in the work that she was doing in Brazil and in the hospital there, but feeling that she was contributing to something beyond that, which I think is the whole idea of the programme.

Federica Santoro 18:10

Yes, and I think this really comes through in the films. You really feel that everyone you interviewed shares this passion and motivation, and they feel part of a greater community and committed to a mission that is much bigger than themselves. Salva, what about the achievements that people were most proud of when you visited Colombia and Brazil and spoke to them for the films and beyond?

Salvador Alvarado 18:38

Well, before sharing the achievements and the proud feelings that some of our colleagues in Latin America feel, I am also a Latin American, right? So I feel really proud to be able to support public health – pharmacovigilance in the end is public health – but especially to be able to support in the strengthening of the monitoring of safety of medicines and vaccines in my country, Mexico, and in my region. We work every day with Latin America and with many other regions around the world. So there's a little bit of distance, but when we are there, visiting, when we are there, reviewing the progress, analysing what has been done, I think it has been quite rewarding for us at UMC to hear directly from them that pharmacovigilance is not the same as it was, you know, five years ago, ten years ago. I think they feel that they have evolved in a way. And that for us is very rewarding, not only from the personal side, that we build relationships, that we build even friends, but that all of this work contributes to prevent damage. Because we have to remember that each one of the reports, as we call them, it's a person, right, that is not feeling well due to a medicine or a vaccine that is supposed to make him or her feel better. So that's what makes our job quite special. But it's not only Latin America, as we were saying, there are actually more than 120 countries around the world that use VigiFlow. That means more than 5 million cases gathered in our systems and shared with the global database. So it's a lot of data, it's a lot of relationships, and each one of those 124 implementations requires assistance, requires training, requires regulation that is backing up there. So that's the work that we do at UMC. And the closer we do that work with the regulators, the better the results, as we have seen in Latin America and in other regions around the world.

Federica Santoro 20:41

Thank you for sharing that. That was so inspiring for us sitting here in the studio as

What UMC support looks like

Federica Santoro 20:47

well. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about UMC's role in the programme overall? Because we've said we help member countries develop their pharmacovigilance systems, but what does that support look like in practice for someone who isn't familiar with UMC's offering?

Salvador Alvarado 21:06

Well, in our role as a WHO Collaborating Centre to support pharmacovigilance activities, in a nutshell, we provide technical, operational, and scientific support to the regulatory authorities or ministries of health that are members of the programme. And we do that in several different ways. For example, we offer VigiFlow as the national pharmacovigilance database for the countries that want to use it. The usage of VigiFlow is not mandatory, but we offer it for free for those regulatory authorities or immunisation programmes that don't have a system like that and want to have a top-of-the-line system that allows you to collect data electronically, that is aligned with the current ICH and WHO recommendations. So we have that as a technological solution to collect reports. But then we also offer VigiLyze that it's, I would say, a fantastic tool. It has a lot of thought, a lot of working hours behind it, and that allows the national regulatory authorities or the immunisation programmes to be able to see and analyse what are the potential problems related to medicines and vaccines, but not only in their country, worldwide. So that means that if I identify that there is a new health-related problem regarding a new medicine or a newly administered vaccine in my country, I can go in to VigiLyze and see if this potential problem is also being seen somewhere else around the world. And that helps me, you know, get in touch maybe with the authority: "Hey, I am seeing this problem here in my country, and I see that you have also reported that. What have you done? What measures have you implemented? Is it that we can work together in the analysis of that?" And there have been several examples of that. But that is the end, because in order to be able to make evidence-based decisions, you need a system, you need the data, and that can be different in different countries. There are countries that already have a system, but there are other countries that maybe have an Excel, and then they were wanting to transition to electronic and be able to align with this ICH standard, so their VigiFlow can offer support. And then once you have the system, then you need support. You need to train your personnel. There UMC can also have, you know, courses, training and education: what's pharmacovigilance, how do you collect high-quality reports, how to operate in VigiFlow, how to operate in VigiLyze, what's signal detection, how to do signal detection. And then we even have some instructor-led courses where experts guide you through the signal detection processes. So you, as a national centre member, can know what to do with all the data that is coming. Of course, we support the terminology to code reactions. MedDRA is in our tools. We support the terminology to be able to standardise the potential medicines or vaccines potentially involved in a problem via WHODrug and IDMP, that is also embedded in our tools. That we have training in WHODrug, training in MedDRA in partnership with our MSSO colleagues. So all of these are activities that we work together with the national centre. And I guess we have had some good results by working together with these national centres and the relevant stakeholders around. Because we talk a lot about national centres, but the national centre is just one element of the whole pharmacovigilance system in a country, as it's featured in Matt's videos. We have had chats with regional pharmacovigilance centres, with hospitals, with vaccination clinics, with the pharmaceutical industry that is also a relevant stakeholder. So there are many different stakeholders involved in pharmacovigilance, many processes that have to be implemented to have a running PV system. And all of that is done together with the national centre. So for us, it's a great honour to be able to work with the focal points at the pharmacovigilance centres in different countries around the world. And well, the idea is to continue supporting as much as possible and as close as possible to them.

Federica Santoro 25:17

Wonderful. So there are many different actors and many different processes, but there's also an extended support network that people can rely on if they have questions throughout the pharmacovigilance cycle, really.

Learning from others' experiences

Federica Santoro 25:32

Matt, what lessons do you hope viewers will take with them from the films?

Matthew Barwick 25:38

Well, just sort of picking up from something that Salvador was talking about earlier, about how every member of the programme has a different context, they're working with different challenges. But at the same time, there are many things that I think are quite universal, in terms of the challenges of conducting pharmacovigilance. So I think what I hope that people can take from the series is to see how different member countries featured in the series are approaching some of those challenges. And some of the successes that they've had in doing so, whether it's under-reporting or moving away from a centralised pharmacovigilance system and allowing more reporting to take place at a kind of regional level or district level, with the use of VigiFlow, for example, throughout the healthcare system, where it can be used in a regional hospital, for example, and how that obviously benefits the national centre because then they're receiving better quality reports, digital reports instead of paper-based, for example. So I think that, yeah, there's the ability for countries just to see how other people in the programme are approaching pharmacovigilance, which I hope can serve as an inspiration. There's also the aspect, I think from our perspective, where there are so many member countries within the programme. Some of those member countries may not be aware of the tools and training that we can provide that they are entitled to. So I think there is an aspect of the films as well, just to show what is available to member countries, what they can actually use these tools for and what they can achieve by using these tools that are available to them.

Federica Santoro 27:14

And I truly hope that the films will inspire lots of member countries to take full advantage of the PIDM community and the benefits that are offered within that network.

How to speak naturally on camera

Federica Santoro 27:25

Now, Matt, I'd like to take advantage of your background in communications and your expertise in the field to give our listeners a few pointers. There are a lot of things to think about when you're on camera. And as a scientist, pharmacovigilance professional, perhaps with no media training, it can feel really daunting to take part in an interview. So, what is your advice for PV professionals who want to showcase their work this way, but who aren't that comfortable doing it?

Matthew Barwick 28:00

Yeah, I mean, it's never easy. I won't deny that. I've been on camera being interviewed myself, and I know it can be very difficult when the red light of the camera goes on. One thing I would say is not to ove-prepare. I think that's a natural inclination when you're asked to do an interview. I think especially if you feel that it's very important to get every detail and every word correct, you can put a lot of time into the preparation, and what you end up doing is scripting what you're going to say. Then once you have a script, you naturally feel like, "Well, I have a script, so I must say what's in the script". And then you're simply reading and trying to reproduce, sort of verbatim, what you've written down. And I think then, what happens is that you lose some of the personality of the person. I think that's so important when you're interviewing somebody, you want to get a sense of who they are, not just what they're saying. So yeah, try not to over-prepare. Of course, that's easier said than done. You know, you want to get across your key talking points, but don't over-prepare so that you can end up sounding a little bit robotic as well. And that's a shame because I think that what draws people into science, as what draws people into anything, is the person behind that science and the person behind the research. So I think, kind of building on that, it's important to not forget about the why, the motivation for what you're doing. I think you can often get bogged down in the process and you can then forget about the more universal things that make an audience more, kind of, empathetic and draw them in, to feeling that it's important. So not forgetting to mention the motivations for why you're doing what you're doing: why this research is important, why you should read this paper... Or I mean, I guess what we're doing now is, why should you watch these films? We're talking about the motivation behind doing it, rather than just simply talking about how we did it. With science more than anything, there is so much process. But I would say, don't forget the emotional aspect, and that's what really will draw an audience in to feeling that what you're saying is worth listening to and important. And then I think, the more detailed stuff, they can get themselves. Maybe they can read the paper or they can dig deeper after that. But I think at least if we're talking about an on-camera interview, I think you really want to get across the person and you want to get across the motivations and that sort of emotional aspect.

Federica Santoro 30:25

A lot of that applies to podcast format as well. So I'm glad we agree on a lot of those points. That's exactly the same advice I give to Drug Safety Matters guests.

Keeping up with an evolving landscape

Federica Santoro 30:34

Let's end by looking ahead. Salva, what's next for the PIDM? Because the pharmacovigilance landscape is not static. So, as it evolves, how should the programme evolve with it? And what role will UMC play, do you think?

Salvador Alvarado 30:52

Yes, I think you have a very good point there. Pharmacovigilance evolves, the medicines are evolving, vaccine technologies are evolving, and UMC and all our services and offerings have to evolve with it. We have several examples that we could mention, but one of them is, for example, artificial intelligence, right? We have these fantastic possibilities now to implement artificial intelligence to facilitate... manual processes is a good example. Many national centres spend still a lot of time doing administrative work in the reports that they receive, but we have now possibilities with artificial intelligence to help them code the reports that they receive so they don't have to code one by one. Talking about Brazil, for example, they receive around 1,500 cases per week. If they are not coded, they have to code them one by one, they have to review them one by one. So, artificial intelligence is a good tool to help facilitate those administrative processes that take time. So instead of monitoring and analysing, they have to do administrative matters that perhaps could be facilitated by artificial intelligence incorporation in our tools. And we at UMC, fortunately, we are a quite proactive organisation. So we have several teams working on that, how can we implement artificial intelligence in the different aspects of pharmacovigilance: case processing, coding, identification of combinations, etc. So I guess, as the landscape evolves, we also have to evolve as well, and I guess we are doing it. And on the other hand, there are new standards, right? The regulators are being more roughly evaluated. The standards are getting tougher to be able to approve medicines, so we also have to be there. We also have to make sure that our services, our trainings, our advice simply, is aligned with these international practices, like the WHO Global Benchmarking Tool, that is a very important tool to evaluate the regulatory system of a country. That tool has a module, it's the vigilance module. That module describes the standards and processes that a regulatory authority must have in place to be recognised as a level 4 authority, for example. All of these new standards that are now in place, well, we have to make sure that we also have capacity building in-house, so we can give advice in alignment with these standards to the national centres and so we can help them achieve them. I guess, as a wrap-up, for us, it's still to continue working closer with the national centres. I mean, in the end, as one of the national centres heads said to us in one of these videos, pharmacovigilance is an act of care. So as long as we have that as our first priority and we can support all the processes that go behind that, I think we will achieve our goal in making medicines and vaccines safer.

What's next for the film series

Federica Santoro 34:06

That's a nice way to put it. What about the film series, Matt? Where is that headed? Is there another installment in the works?

Matthew Barwick 34:13

Yes, there is. I mean, I think aside from how we at UMC are actually using the films on our channels, we're hoping as well that the PIDM members themselves, who featured in the series, can use the films in their countries because, of course, the films are produced in their language. Having worked in the communications team for many years at UMC, we know that the PIDM members, their communications teams, they often don't have the resources to produce this type of communication. So I think it's great that they're able to use the film in their context as well, to actually get the word out and promote the work that they're doing, the importance of pharmacovigilance, the importance of reporting, what happens when you report. Like, it's not obvious to people, actually. Why should I report, what happens to my report? So I think a film like this, that actually takes you through the process – how it operates in the country, where that report goes, and how that contributes to medicines and vaccine safety in the country – is a really important message for them to show in their context as well. In terms of, like, the focus of the series, I think up to this point we focused a lot on the use of UMC's tools, but also we understand that that's quite a niche topic and it's gonna have a niche audience as well. So we also want the communication to be more accessible to people beyond that, the people who don't necessarily know what VigiFlow is or VigiLyze, you know. We want to talk about even more universal concepts, like substandard and falsified medicines, which is a huge problem globally. We want to look at conducting pharmacovigilance in a context where the resources are limited. You know, when you have a very small team and low resources, what can you do? What is being done? We want to look at how misinformation can impact public health outcomes. And we also want to look at the day-to-day reality of people that work in a healthcare system as well. To maybe focus a little bit more on somebody who is a vaccine worker, for example, somebody who's going out into the field and administering vaccines, and kind of getting to understand a little bit more about their motivations and the challenges that they face. So that's something that would be really interesting as well, to maybe take it more into a focus on individual protagonists rather than trying to deal with the context of a whole country. Yeah, and as I said, I think the media landscape at the moment, if we look at it as a whole, it's saturated with misinformation. There's growing distrust, I think, especially in vaccines, if we talk about the climate post-COVID. So I think it's really important, you know, understanding that we're not communicating in a vacuum, that we're communicating in a landscape that is saturated with those voices. So I think we can't rest on our laurels. We have to understand that, yeah, our mission is important, but we have to communicate our mission. And if those voices are there in the landscape, I think we need to be bolder and louder and putting our message and our voice out there as well. And showing the incredible work that is being done in these countries and the passion and dedication that people have in medicines and vaccine safety, yeah.

Federica Santoro 37:28

That's a whole other episode, diving into tactics to tackle mis- and disinformation. Well, thank you very much for your time. It's been such an interesting discussion. The films are quite short, but it's amazing that they sparked all of these interesting conversations. I find they're quite powerful in their message, so I really hope listeners will visit our YouTube channel and watch some of the films in the series. And I look forward to the next few screenings, then, Matt. And thank you, Salva, as well for bringing in the pharmacovigilance programme perspective to the episode.

Salvador Alvarado 38:11

Thank you.

Matthew Barwick 38:11

Thanks for having us.

Closing, resources & credits

Federica Santoro 38:30

That’s all for now, but if you want to know more about the PIDM or the film series, we’ve put some helpful resources in the show notes. You'll also find a link there to send us a voicemail. Don't be shy, we'd love to hear from you! And of course, if you enjoy the podcast, do subscribe in your favourite player. We'll be back soon with another episode, but until then, you can get more pharmacovigilance stories on our news site Uppsala Reports. To learn more about Uppsala Monitoring Centre and how we promote safer use of medicines and vaccines globally, go to our website or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Blue sky. For Drug Safety Matters, I'm Federica Santoro. Thanks for listening and till next time!