Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Howe on 22 November (HL3229), what assessment they have made of the conclusions of the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee of the European Medicines Agency in 2014 that: “There is enough evidence … supporting a causal relationship between mefloquine and the occurrence of long lasting and even persistent neuropsychiatric side effects” and a “strong suspicion” that mefloquine can cause “permanent brain damage”.

At its meeting in February 2014, the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) of the European Medicines Agency recommended that the product information for mefloquine be amended to state that neuropsychiatric adverse reactions may persist for months, or longer, even after discontinuation of the drug. The PRAC did not recommend that such reactions should be listed as permanent. The United Kingdom product information for mefloquine reflects the final PRAC recommendation.