Alex Dodoo heads International Society of Pharmacovigilance

The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH), Dr. Alex Dodoo, has been elected President of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP), for a three year term.

Dr. Dodoo, who is also the current President of the Global Drug Safety Organisation, will end his three year leadership of the ISoP, at its General Meeting in 2012. The election took place at the ISoP's Annual Conference in Reins, France.

Dodoo, who takes over from Professor Nicholas Moore of the University of Bordeaux in France, becomes not just the first African, but also the first non-European to be elected into this high and important position in global drug safety.

Dr. Alex Dodoo is a 45 year old pharmacist and clinical pharmacologist, with degrees from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, and King's College London, UK.

He also undertook a year of research at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

Dr. Dodoo is currently the Head of the Centre for Tropical Clinical Pharmacology and

Therapeutics at the University of Ghana Medical School, and leads the Global Outreach team for the World Health Organisation (WHO) Programme for International Drug Monitoring in Uppsala Sweden.

The affable Dr. Alex Dodoo is a member of several global committees on drug safety. He is a member of the WHO Advisory Committee on the Safety of Medicinal Products (ACSoMP), the WHO Expert Panel on Drug Evaluation, and a member-at-large of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety.

Furthermore, he is also a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and a Fellow of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacy Practice, and the President of the Pharmacy Information Section of the International Pharmaceutical Federation, based in The Hague, Netherland.

Instructively, the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP) is an international non-profit scientific organisation, which aims to foster Pharmacovigilance, both scientifically and educationally, and enhance all aspects of the safe and proper use of medicines in all countries.

In addition to annual meetings in different countries, it also holds spring training courses on both basic and advanced pharmacovigilance.

Its membership is drawn from industry, academia and national drug regulatory agencies.