Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O'Shaughnessy on 18 January (HL4484), whether they consider the completed "cases of suicide", listed in the current mefloquine product information leaflet as reported psychiatric adverse reactions to the drug, to be permanent.

In the context of an adverse reaction to a medicine, suicide is a possible outcome of suicidal ideation, rather than necessarily an adverse reaction to treatment. For mefloquine, the current assessment, as recommended by the European Medicines Agency's Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee, is that whilst psychiatric side effects, including suicidal ideation, may persist after stopping treatment, current evidence does not support that these may be permanent after stopping treatment.