The aim of the news bulletin is to increase the awareness of adverse drug reactions amongst healthcare professionals, and to promote adverse reaction reporting to medicinal products. This issue includes topics such as the association between UGT1A1 variant alleles and irinotecan-induced severe neutropenia, increased myopathy with combination use of ER niacin/laropiprant (Tredaptive®) and simvastatin 40mg in Chinese patients, finasteride and potential risk of male breast cancer, sitagliptin- a new class of antidiabetic agents and acute pancreatitis, illegal product [活絡金丹] adulterated with undeclared medicinal ingredients, analysis of adverse event reports for year 2009, osteonecrosis of the jaw associated with bisphosphonates, a safety update on erythropoietin stimulating agents, an update on the national immunisation registry and H1N1 vaccination records, cessation of marketing of Mediaxal® in Singapore and an interim regulatory update on sibutramine and cardiovascular risk.

Influenza A (H1N1-2009) has become endemic among global communities. Yesterday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) informed that countries are no longer required to submit regular reports of individual laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths to WHO. This is because the reporting of such numbers is no longer a useful monitoring tool. WHO has also decided that it will no longer publish the global tables showing the number of confirmed cases for all countries.

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