The role of health surveillance in the face of self-medication in the context of Covid-19: A literature reviewha

Abstract

The politicization of the disease led to misinformation and the use of unproven treatments, such as the “COVID Kit”. The National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) took important measures, including management and planning, health risk control, regulation, monitoring of suspected and confirmed cases, as well as information, communication and health education. Therefore, the general objective of this research is to demonstrate how the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) acted in the face of self-medication in the context of COVID-19. To this end, a literature review was carried out over the last five years on self-medication, pandemics, health surveillance, using databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Manuals from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization Inclusion criteria were adopted, such as articles published in Portuguese or English, primary studies and literature reviews, while studies that did not meet the general objective of the work and publications prior to 2019 were excluded. Regarding the results, ANVISA played an important role in the control and regulation of medicines during the pandemic, classifying chloroquine as a special control medicine and carrying out more than 30 thousand inspections to ensure compliance with clinical protocols to combat the disease. Finally, the pandemic brought challenges for health surveillance professionals, in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus, especially regarding the inappropriate use of medicines and other products subject to health assessment.