
VigiCare FAQ

Foire aux questions
An adverse effect is an unexpected effect resulting from taking a health product in the event of proper use or during any other use (overdose, misuse, drug abuse, medication error).
This term refers to all harmful and unwanted reactions caused by taking medication(s) or other health products, which can sometimes lead to death and/or hospitalization.
This is the estimate of the probability of a relationship between taking a product and the occurrence of an adverse effect.
More simply, the imputability calculation allows you to determine whether a link can be established between an adverse effect and the taking of a product such as a drug, a cosmetic, a food supplement, etc…
To obtain a safe and reliable result, we have chosen to use an internationally recognized method called the Naranjo algorithm.
The Naranjo algorithm, also called the Naranjo scale or score, is an international questionnaire designed by Naranjo et al. to determine the likelihood that an adverse effect is actually due to taking a health product (drug, dietary supplement, cosmetic, etc.) rather than the result of other factors.
At the end of the calculation of the probability according to the Naranjo method, a score is obtained. This score is then assigned to one of the 4 categories:
Clear link
Possible link
Possible link
Dubious link
These categories ultimately make it possible to standardize the identification and classification of adverse effects on an international scale.
Vigicare is a free Web Application, dedicated to adverse effects related to taking products such as: drugs, food supplements and cosmetics. Based on an artificial intelligence system using scientific data enriched by user data, Vigicare's services allow you to quickly analyze your symptoms and determine whether or not they are correlated to the administration/taking of a product.
Allow you to access a reliable analysis of your symptoms and determine if a causal link can be established between them and various health and care products.
We developed this application to fight against a major public health problem: the lack of knowledge of adverse effects.
Vigicare is our response to facilitate everyone's access to reliable information and analyzes on the potential adverse effects of drugs and all other health and care products.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the United Nations specialized agency for global health. Its main mission is to promote health, preserve global security and serve vulnerable populations by, among other things, assessing the health risks presented by medicines and health products intended for human beings.
The safety profile provides information about the possible risks associated with a drug, medical device, cosmetic, dietary supplement, etc. Patients and healthcare providers should conduct a benefit assessment and disadvantages to make the decision that best meets the patient's specific needs and conditions. This profile must be reassessed at regular intervals in order to guarantee the safe use of the product. These reassessments are mainly based on adverse effects reported by patients and healthcare professionals to pharmacovigilance organizations.
The Vigicare application is a web application founded in 2022 by pharmacists in collaboration with doctors. To find out more you can visit the page of our website!
Vigicare mainly uses public data from European and global vigilance (WHO).
Vigicare Premium is a subscription (€3.99/month without commitment) which gives you access to additional features:
● Unlimited product search to find out the safety profile (adverse effects by age group, gender, etc.)
● Ability to use the functionalities (adverse effects-imputability and adverse reaction reporting) offline
● Unlimited use without advertising
User data is used solely for the purpose of enriching the Vigicare application and allowing access to the most reliable and complete information possible. The principle of minimizing data collection is however fully respected. This data is neither shared nor sold to a third party.
For more information, do not hesitate to consult our privacy policy.
The protection of your personal data is a priority for Vigicare, which has implemented a set of technical and organizational measures to ensure this. The application uses a certified health data host that complies with international cybersecurity standards.
Our team answers all your questions. To do so, go to the contact section!
The WHO and many countries have set up online reporting portals to facilitate the reporting of adverse reactions. These sites allow healthcare professionals and individuals to report any adverse event or unusual effect that has a negative impact on health to the health authorities in just a few clicks.
To simplify your process, you can directly access our (free) Vigicare application!
Pharmacovigilance is defined by the WHO, as “the science and activities related to the detection, evaluation, understanding and prevention of adverse drug reactions or other possible problems related to health products” . More concretely, pharmacovigilance allows the detection of signals of adverse effects that would not have been identified upstream during the development of the drug.
When health products are under development, they are tested on a limited number of participants selected for clinical trials. Although this allows researchers to observe the most common side effects, rare side effects are statistically less likely to be observed at this stage. However, once the health product or cosmetic hits the market, a much larger and more diverse population is exposed to it, and rare side effects become more likely to occur. Identifying and investigating unknown or poorly understood side effects is essential to help ensure the safe use of various health products, and this can only be done if adverse effects are reported.
If you suspect that the appearance of unusual symptoms is the result of taking a health or care product, you can first go to the Vigicare application to calculate the link of imputability. Depending on the result, if a causal relationship is suspected, you can report your effects and, if necessary, contact a healthcare professional (your doctor, pharmacist or any other qualified healthcare professional).
In any case, never stop a treatment or change the dose without first asking your doctor for advice. Only a health professional will be able to advise and guide you appropriately. The balance between the benefits and harms of a drug is not the same for all patients, and individual decisions must be made between patients and their healthcare providers.
The national pharmacovigilance center that receives the report will evaluate it and identify potential unknown or poorly treated risks. All the data collected will allow health authorities to monitor the use and safety profile of health products and, if necessary, recalculate the benefit/risk ratio conditioning their marketing.
Potential adverse reactions extracted from VigiCare reports are structured by mapping originally reported symptoms to standardized medical terminology, allowing for statistical analyzes of the data. One of the benefits of this process is that it allows similar terms to be grouped together and presented in a hierarchical structure. The standard terminology used in Vigicare is MedDRA (Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities).
A Regional Pharmacovigilance Center is tasked by the ANSM with collecting adverse effects from medicines (and other health products) at the regional level, evaluating them and transmitting them to the ANSM. It also informs healthcare professionals and patients about the drug, its risks, its use and its proper use


