Global public health programmes have two central ethical responsibilities: to deliver health services to benefit populations, and to minimize the risk of unintended harm to individuals. That is, to provide health benefits safely.
In May 2019, the Seventy‐second World Health Assembly endorsed the establishment of World Patient Safety Day, to be marked annually on 17 September. World Patient Safety Day aims to improve awareness about the importance of patient safety, embrace the involvement of people and communities in delivering high‐quality health care, lessen the occurrence and high cost of medical error, and reaffirm the fundamental medical principle of “First, do no harm”.
Resolution WHA72.6 on Global action on patient safety1 requested WHO to, among other actions, develop normative guidance and tools to promote patient safety. The resolution also urged Member States to provide training, promote safety research, share and disseminate best practices, and work collaboratively with other sectors to embed safety in all health polices and strategies.
Annually, over the past 5 years, global neglected tropical diseases (NTD) programmes have reached more than 1 billion people for at least one disease through large-scale treatment programmes. In addition, millions more have been individually managed for NTDs including snakebite envenomation, human African trypanosomiasis, visceral leishmaniasis, chronic lymphoedema associated with lymphatic filariasis, trachomatous trichiasis and filarial hydrocele. Programmes go to great lengths to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of these interventions.
In so doing, NTD programmes contribute substantially to the overall safety of patients and enhance the quality of health services.
Patient safety is paramount in treating large numbers of individuals. It can be maximized by providing guidance for, and training of, health‐care providers; adhering to WHO recommendations on the quality of medicines and on where and how to intervene; monitoring of drug efficacy; and providing pharmacovigilance at the point of care.
In addition to these measures, which have long been held to be critical programme components, the WHO Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, national programmes and their partners have mobilized quickly to respond to WHA72.6 by emphasizing in the new NTD road map for 2021–2030 the importance of safety in key areas, including:
- prequalification, to ensure the availability of safe, quality‐assured medicines and diagnostics;
- strengthening our collaborations with national pharmacovigilance agencies to improve monitoring, evaluation and response to adverse events; and
- reinforcing measures to improve patient care in individual disease management, through initiatives such as simulation devices for training and testing surgeons.
The Department is also developing and consolidating safety guidance for NTD programmes to include training modules and job aids for workers at different levels of the health system.
Recent regional meetings of NTD Programme Managers and Programme Review Groups in WHO’s Western Pacific and South East Asia regions have further highlighted patient safety issues and provided opportunities for NTD programme managers to share safety challenges and best practices.
Health ministries and programme partners are also taking important action. For example, within months of the adoption of WHA72.6, the NTD NGO Network launched its NTD Safety Commitment at its annual meeting in Liverpool, UK; and the Federal Ministry of Health of Ethiopia, in collaboration with the International Trachoma Initiative and other partners, conducted a large observational assessment of mass drug administration safety, which is expected to further refine safety guidance.
Global NTD programmes continue to deliver massive health benefits to affected populations. Safety has always been integral to NTD programmes. The heightened global profile of the importance of patient safety prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic provides a clear opportunity for NTD programmes to demonstrate that they remain at the forefront of promoting safety.
I am grateful to our many partners for their collaboration and support and commend their efforts to preserve and strengthen safety as we prepare for the coming decade.
Today, on World Patient Safety Day, I call on the global NTD community to continue to put safety first and instill this culture as we accelerate our efforts to control, eliminate and eradicate NTDs. Between now and 2030 we should aim to:
- eliminate NTDs with zero operational errors and serious adverse events, which are already very seldom observed during WHO-recommended interventions;
- ensure that quality-assured, quality-controlled population-based data on NTD prevalence are used to guide implementation of mass drug administration, moving towards precision public health;
- continue to ensure that all medicines are safe and quality-assured;
- continue to build capacity in the safe administration of NTD medicines; and
- continue to ensure the delivery of high‐quality, patient-centred care for people living with NTDs.
The signature mark of this first World Patient Safety Day is the illumination of buildings and public places with the colour orange. While individually or institutionally we may not all be able to participate in this symbolic act, we should at least wear orange-coloured attire to commemorate this day. More importantly, we should continue to put the safety of our patients at the heart of every action in our collective efforts to combat NTDs.
1https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA72/A72_R6-en.pdf
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September 18, 2020 at 12:46AM
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World Patient Safety Day, 2020 - World Health Organization
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