Knowledge, attitudes and practices of pharmacovigilance in the context of COVID-19 in health professionals of the peruvian social insurance. / Conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas de farmacovigilancia en el contexto de la COVID-19 en profesionales de la salud del Seguro Social del Perú.

The study aimed to evaluate a group of health professionals' knowledge, attitudes, and practices on pharmacovigilance in the context of COVID-19 in the Peruvian Social Health Insurance (EsSalud). A descriptive secondary analysis was carried out on a database that included responses from an online survey conducted by the Institutional Referral Center for Pharmacovigilance and Technovigilance of EsSalud. Of 144 participants, 66% showed a high level of knowledge and 81.2% had a positive attitude; however, 71.5% had an inadequate level of pharmacovigilance practice. Although EsSalud professionals demonstrated a high level of knowledge and positive attitude to implement pharmacovigilance, this is not reflected in the practice of this activity during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Strategies should be implemented to integrate pharmacovigilance into healthcare activities to benefit patient safety.

El estudio tuvo como objetivo evaluar el conocimiento, las actitudes y prácticas de un grupo de profesionales de la salud sobre la farmacovigilancia en el contexto de la COVID-19 en el Seguro Social de Salud del Perú (EsSalud). Se realizó un análisis secundario descriptivo de una base de datos que incluía las respuestas de una encuesta en línea realizada por el Centro de Referencia Institucional de Farmacovigilancia y Tecnovigilancia de EsSalud. De 144 participantes, el 66% mostró alto nivel de conocimiento y el 81,2%, actitud positiva; sin embargo, el 71,5% tuvo un inadecuado nivel de práctica de farmacovigilancia. Si bien los profesionales de EsSalud demostraron tener alto conocimiento y actitud positiva para implementar farmacovigilancia, esto no se ve reflejado en la práctica de esta actividad en la época de pandemia por el SARS-CoV-2. Se deben emplear estrategias para integrar a la farmacovigilancia en las actividades asistenciales en beneficio de la seguridad del paciente.

Characterization of the emerging B.1.621 variant of interest of SARS-CoV-2.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genetic diversity has the potential to impact the virus transmissibility and the escape from natural infection- or vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibodies. Here, representative samples from circulating SARS-CoV-2 in Colombia between January and April 2021, were processed for genome sequencing and lineage determination following the nanopore amplicon ARTIC network protocol and PANGOLIN pipeline. This strategy allowed us to identify the emergence of the B.1.621 lineage, considered a variant of interest (VOI) with the accumulation of several substitutions affecting the Spike protein, including the amino acid changes I95I, Y144T, Y145S and the insertion 146 N in the N-terminal domain, R346K, E484K and N501Y in the Receptor binding Domain (RBD) and P681H in the S1/S2 cleavage site of the Spike protein. The rapid increase in frequency and fixation in a relatively short time in Magdalena, Atlantico, Bolivar, Bogotá D.C, and Santander that were near the theoretical herd immunity suggests an epidemiologic impact. Further studies will be required to assess the biological and epidemiologic roles of the substitution pattern found in the B.1.621 lineage.