WHAT IS THE JOINT SIGNAL MANAGEMENT (JSM) GROUP?

Due to historically relatively low levels of adverse event reporting in African countries, AU-3S is focused on strengthening the regional capacity for detecting and assessing safety signals that potentially would not be picked up in a single country’s data.

The AU-3S Joint Signal Management (JSM) Group has been set-up to validate, prioritise, and assess these cross-country signals based on integrated data. This will be done for COVID-19 vaccines in the short-term and other priority medical products in the longer-term.

Additionally, the JSM Group will:

• Promote collaboration on the topic of safety surveillance amongst African member countries

• Be a forum for technical support from reference medical products regulatory authorities to African regulatory authorities and other relevant public health programmes

• Strengthen the capabilities of JSM Group members through engagement with experts from reference regulators and sharing of experiences and best practices across member countries

The AU-3S JSM group does not replace the function of the national product safety committees, it is designed to support and work with these national committees.

The JSM Group’s key roles will be performed by a group of expert members with support from a Secretariat. Members include representatives from the pilot countries’ NRAs, EPIs, and national product safety committees and are supplemented with independent experts for key subject matter expertise. The secretariat will be led by AUDA-NEPAD, with representatives from countries for capacity strengthening, and from the MHRA for technical support.

The JSM Group will not be a decision-making body but will share its findings and recommendations with national committees for determining actions to be taken in country. The JSM Group will also communicate findings to a wider AU audience through the AUDA network.