The Prevent Detect Respond framework is a public health focused approach promoted by the WHO to help countries, regulators, and health systems protect patients from SF medicines. It provides a structured way to strengthen medicine safety—from securing the supply chain, to identifying suspicious products, to responding effectively when incidents occur. Health service providers, especially pharmacists, prescribers, nurses, and community-level workers, play an important role in implementing this framework on the front line.
Prevention focuses on reducing opportunities for SF medicines to enter your health facility, pharmacy, or patient pathway.
Roles and Responsibilities for Healthcare Providers:
Pharmacists & Supply Staff
- Source medicines only from licensed distributors.
- Maintain proper storage conditions and inventory systems, including batch and lot traceability.
- Ensure expired or unused products are removed promptly and disposed of safely so they cannot re-enter circulation.
- Use good dispensing practices: correct repackaging and handling to avoid product deterioration.
- Counsel patients to avoid unauthorized online websites.
Prescribers (Physicians and Nurses)
- Prescribe according to national guidelines and formularies.
- Avoid prescribing medicines unavailable within your system or financially inaccessible, which may drive patients to unsafe sources.
- Ensure patients understand their treatment plan and the importance of obtaining medicines from legitimate outlets.
All Healthcare Providers
Raise awareness within your community about risks of SF medicines.
Communication must be clear, calm, and non-alarmist to avoid unnecessary fear, stigma, or loss of trust in the health system
While some SF medicines are difficult to identify and only laboratory testing can accurately detect these medicines, frontline vigilance and visual checks are important steps in detection.
Roles and Responsibilities for Healthcare Providers:
Perform Routine Visual Inspections:
- Inspect packaging, seals, labels, leaflets, batch numbers, and security features.
- Watch for changes in appearance, colour, odour, texture, or particulate matter.
- Ensure products match reference samples when available.
Recognize Patient Level Red Flags
- Unexpected lack of clinical response, unusual side effects, or treatment failures may signal a SF medicine.
- Ask patients about where they obtained the medicine, and guide them away from risky sources.
Cultivate a Culture of Safe Reporting
- Report suspected SFMPs promptly, staff should feel protected, not blamed, for raising concerns.
Once a suspected SF medicine is identified, quick action reduces harm.
Roles and Responsibilities for Healthcare Providers:
Immediate Actions
- Stop using and distributing the suspected product.
- Secure the product to prevent accidental use.
- Notify regulatory authorities (eg., national regulatory authority), suppliers, and internal leadership.
Support Risk Assessment
- Provide detailed information on batches, sources, patient exposure, adverse reactions, and where the product was stored or dispensed.
- Help assess the severity of clinical impact and the scale of distribution.
Assist with Follow-Up
- Cooperate with recalls and patient notifications.
- Share data with surveillance systems.
Maintain Professional and Transparent Communication
Communicate with patients and colleagues in a balanced, factual manner to avoid unnecessary alarm while ensuring safety.