Informatics afor health

16 Non-proprietary drug names B As the same drug is often sold under many different privately-owned commercial trade names, there is a need to identify each drug substance by a unique, universally available and accepted generic name that can be used in the labelling and advertising of medicinal products in international commerce. For over 30 years, WHO has selected international non-proprietary names (INN) by coordinating the activi- ties of national drug nomenclature commissions. Instances where official national generic names are different from the INN are now exceptional. To date, some 5,700 names have been published in 60 lists of international proprie- tary names. The INN are maintained by the Pharmaceutical Unit of WHO's Division of Drug Management and Policies on a computerised database operated on ·a mainframe computer in Geneva. This was one of the first computer applications developed by WHO in the early 1960s. Today, the computerised database simplifies the regular publication of the Cumulative List of International Non-proprietary Names. Member governments as well as private corporations use the database to identify new international non- proprietary names and as a reference related to the use of trademarks. This information is currently distributed to WHO's member governments and is available in hard copy or on computer tapes. Users of the INN system may in future have access to on-line query facilities of the database, which may also be available on CD-ROM disks. Informatics and Telematics in Health Present and Potential Uses An example of informatics support to WHO's intern< sanitation is the Country External Support Informatim information tool which is maintained by WHO and used b is to improve the planning (including resources allocation CESI is a computerised database of drinking water sup have received or are seeking external support. The sysh Division of Environmental Health (EHE) in collaboration ' the Organization's headquarters in Geneva. The EHE Prog completed projects from external support agencies (bilate non-governmental organizations). Extra data on projects 1 the governments of developing countries. In essence CESI offers the opportunity for all those ope aid can be directed where it is most needed and inefficie1 CESI to exchange information electronically with other sy systems or non-compatible computers are received in pri1 sent regularly to participating agencies in printed form or Informatic~ The new science of informatics - the science o, dissemination of information by computers - public health. Here are just three example! technology to share information with its 16E WORLD HEALTH. August/September 1989 coordination activities in the field of water and System (CESI). The system is a sector management governments and external support agencies. Its purpose and management of water and sanitation projects. and sanitation projects in developing countries which was developed to run on microcomputers by WHO's the Division of Information Systems Support (ISS) at in WHO collects information about continuing and and multilateral funding institutions, UN agencies, and preparation come both from the agencies and from g in the sector to share information regularly, so that t overlap can be avoided. It should soon be feasible for Meanwhile, data from agencies with manual record ted form, for manual entry by WHO. CESI output is also on computer diskettes. • • for health 'the collection, evaluation, organization and has innumerable applications in the field of of the use WHO is making of computer member countries. Sources of food contamination B The joint UNEP/FAO/WHO Food Contamination Monitoring Programme studies the contamination of food by chemical agents arising from environmental and industrial pollution, from agricultural technology, from food processing practices and from natural sources. Information on contamination from all these sources is collected at 37 collaborating centres throughout the world and forwarded to the WHO Environmental Health (EHE) Programme in Geneva for inclusion in a computer database maintained by the Information Systems Support (ISS) Division of WHO. Since its inception in 1979, the database has grown to its present volume of more than 7,000 records on contaminants in food. The system currently accounts for more than 1,200 food types, and a number of contami- nants among which are pesticides, phosphates, lead, mercury and tin. The system records the results of food sampling by the collaborating laboratories. Data items reflect the name of the food, the contaminant, year of sampling, origin of the food, the number of samples analysed, the detection limit and median, and the minimum and maximum measurements of the contami- nant detected. The database is used by national health authorities, and in particular public health laboratories, to compare test results and conditions in other countries. The Food Safety unit of WHO's EHE Division produces printed status reports on food contamination every two years which are distributed to all member states. The database and attendant system software are maintained and operated on a large mainframe computer in Geneva. The possibility of providing remote users with access to the database, either through on-line query facilities or on CD-ROM diskettes, or both, is at present being explored. 17