An adverse reaction is a reaction to the drug that is harmful and unintended. It is considered a serious adverse reaction if the reaction is fatal or life-threatening, requires hospitalization or prolongation of hospitalization, results in permanent or serious disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly or birth defect.

For vaccines, the absence of an effect (e.g., no vaccine protection after vaccination has occurred) is also particularly relevant and should be reported in all cases.

Health care professionals, i.e. physicians, dentists, midwives, pharmacists, druggists and tradespeople who are authorized to manufacture or wholesale medicinal products pursuant to the Gewerbeordnung 1994 (Trade, Commerce and Industry Regulation Act 1994), are obliged to report adverse drug reactions occurring in Austria to the BASG pursuant to the Arzneimittelgesetz (Medicinal Products Act) and the Pharmacovigilance Ordinance (Pharmakovigilanzverordnung).  

Patients and relatives also have the option of voluntarily reporting suspected adverse drug reactions directly to the BASG.

Statistics of all reports, broken down by first and subsequent reports as well as by notifier can be found HERE.

24-hour emergency telephone number for pharmacovigilance officers or safety officers:

Tel.: +43 (0) 664 831 28 43

Please note: The emergency number is only to be used for emergencies within the meaning of § 10 Regulation on Pharmacovigilance or § 70 Austrian Medical Devices Act.

An emergency only exists if there is an immediate danger to life or a serious and considerable danger to health.

Any further questions or information should be submitted via the contacts of the Austrian Federal Office for Safety in Health Care.

Your reports will be treated confidentially. There are no negative consequences for the notifier.

By reporting adverse reactions, you can help provide more information about the safety of this medicine.

Once the Federal Office for Safety in Health Care has identified medically unacceptable risks, it can support the safe handling of medicinal products by imposing restrictions on use - possibly until the withdrawal of a marketing authorisation already granted by the authorities. The Federal Office for Safety in Health Care cooperates with the relevant authorities in other European Member States and with the European Medicines Agency.

The reporting of suspicious cases is therefore indispensable in terms of consumer protection.

We would also like to draw your attention to the European database, where you will find information on adverse reactions of medical products and active substances (at EU level).

Marketing authorisation holder should send all suspected serious and non-serious post-marketing case reports, which occurred within Austria, directly electronically to EVPM (EudraVigilance post-authorization module). This also includes case reports from the worldwide literature and non-interventional data collection schemes which occurred in Austria.

Medical literature monitoring – MLM Service EMA

Since September 2015 the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is responsible for monitoring a number of substances and selected medical literature to identify suspected adverse reactions with medicines authorised in the European Union, and for entering the relevant information into the EudraVigilance database.

The MLM service currently includes 300 active substances and 100 herbals.

The results of this research is available for MAHs and member states as Individual Case Safety Reports (ICRS) in the Eudravigilance database. However, this does not release pharmaceutical companies from their obligation to monitor the literature (local literature search) with regard to their marketing authorisations.