Washington, D.C., June 20, 2026.- Belize has been officially included as a full member of the Programme for International Drug Monitoring (PIDM) of the World Health Organization (WHO), marking a significant milestone in the country's efforts to strengthen medicines safety and protect public health.
This achievement reflects years of sustained work by the Ministry of Health and Wellness of Belize to strengthen its national pharmacovigilance system, regulatory oversight, and post-marketing surveillance of medical products, with ongoing technical cooperation from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Belize initially joined the PIDM as an Associate Member in 2020.
Full membership in the PIDM recognizes Belize’s growing capacity to detect, assess, understand, and prevent adverse effects or other medicine-related problems, while contributing data and expertise to the global network coordinated by the WHO and the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC).
PAHO has supported Belize’s efforts through a series of technical cooperation initiatives aimed at strengthening national regulatory and pharmacovigilance capacities, including post-marketing surveillance, adverse event reporting systems, training of health professionals, improving data exchange and interoperability, and enhancing participation in regional and international regulatory networks.
A key factor for achieving this recognition was Belize’s improved interoperability and information exchange capacities, strengthened as part of the Data Bridges project, which PAHO is supporting in the region to promote the connection between pharmacovigilance databases in the Americas and VigiBase, the WHO global database of individual case safety reports managed by the UMC.
Belize has established direct reporting to global surveillance systems through VigiFlow/VigiBase and the Global Surveillance and Monitoring System (GSMS). This enables the country to contribute to regional and global efforts to identify potential safety signals and respond to emerging risks associated with medical products.
In recent years, the country has expanded its regulatory and surveillance activities, participated in regional pharmacovigilance networks, strengthened its Drug Inspectorate Unit, and taken concrete steps to improve the monitoring of medicine quality and safety throughout the supply chain. The Ministry of Health and Wellness has also engaged in GBT self-benchmarking and regulatory strengthening processes aimed at further enhancing national capacity.
As a full member of the PIDM, Belize will have greater opportunities to collaborate with countries around the world, access international analyses and safety information, and contribute to the global detection of medicine-related risks.
Strengthening regulatory systems remains a public health priority for the Pan American Health Organization. In 2022, Member States endorsed the Policy to Strengthen National Regulatory Systems for Medicines and Other Health Technologies (CSP30.R12), which encourages countries to strengthen international reporting of post-marketing surveillance findings, including adverse events and incidents involving substandard and falsified medical products through WHO reporting systems.
