History

The BIG V&S (Bologna Initiative for Global Vigilance and Surveillance) initiative resulted from the Notify Project, which was co-ordinated by the World Health Organisation and the Italian National Transplant Centre (CNT); with the collaboration of the EU funded project SOHO V&S (Vigilance and Surveillance of Substances of Human Origin). Global experts gathered didactic information on documented types of adverse outcomes in transplantation and assisted reproduction and reviewed the cases to identify general principles supporting detection and investigation. This Website hosts the database of vigilance information collected by the Notify Project. The library is maintained and updated on this platform and is intended as a communication hub for institutions and organisations worldwide collaborating in the facilitation of access to Vigilance and Surveillance information.

The Italian National Transplant Centre (www.trapianti.salute.gov.it), a WHO Collaborating Centre on Vigilance and Surveillance for Human Cells, Tissues and Organs, manages the site. The work is carried out by a large group of experts, regulators and clinicians across the globe who have, since late 2010, contributed in numerous ways to the initiative started by WHO to raise the profile of vigilance and surveillance of organs, tissues and cells, following the adoption of Resolution WHA 63.22. The EU funded project SOHO V&S (Vigilance and Surveillance of Substances of Human Origin) has also collaborated actively in the work. All those who attended the Notify meeting in Bologna in February 2011 are listed in the report Notify exploring vigilance notification for organs, tissues and cells, Notify Group, Bologna, p.133, (2011). Following a WHO Consultation meeting in Geneva in July 2011, a number of individuals were asked to collaborate in editorial working groups to refine and standardise the enormous work carried out previously on a Google website. This work is essential to allow the uploading of the information to a new relational database on this site. This work is ongoing and new experts joined the working groups during a Notify consultation in November 2012 in Rome.

The preliminary work carried out in Brazil, in December 2013, was continued by a group of 30 international experts in Barcelona in March 2014.  A taxonomy for blood product types and haemovigilance adverse occurrence types was drafted, in line with the approach already taken for other MPHO, to allow structured searching of the database and the bibliography.  The NOTIFY Library database is undergoing a substantial revision and upgrade to allow it to support the complex and more highly defined haemovigilance information that is well documented in the literature.

In February 2015, the Spanish National Transplant Organisation, ONT, and the Catalan Organisation for Transplantation signed an agreement with CNT to support the work of the NOTIFY  project, contributing resources and expertise.