PUTRAJAYA (Bernama): Malaysia has established the National Healthy Research Volunteer Register (NHRVR) as a commitment to ensure the integrity and safety of clinical trials in the country.

       Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah (pic) when launching the platform virtually on Friday (July 2) said the initiative would enhance the ability and capability of Malaysia in conducting clinical trials in accordance with international standards.

       He said there was a pressing need in Malaysia to detect duplication by volunteers as proactively conducted in the United Kingdom and the United States, where these countries had verifiable trial registries to monitor volunteer participation, primarily to avoid duplication by trial subjects.

       "By creating a platform to prevent over-volunteering by volunteers, we hope to avoid costly screening procedures and improve transparency between clinical research centres for recruitment strategies,” he said.

       He explained that the NHRVR platform would adopt the concept for the clinical trial set by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) for Inspection and Accreditation Program for First in Human clinical trials.

       Dr Noor Hisham said the establishment of the NHRVR under the Institute for Clinical Research (ICR), Ministry of Health was only accessible by registered and trained users, thus ensuring that data security and confidentiality were well preserved.- Bernama