System notifications and alerts

Different types of transaction errors in the medicines verification system can generate various system notifications. These notifications are categorized into 5 levels, and only the highest level, L5, generates alert that require an alert investigation. 

A medicine’s pack that has generated an alert should not be sold or used by a patient. When the verification system generates an alert, both the end user and the Marketing Authorisation Holder (MAH) should initiate a simultaneous investigation. 

The end user performs the following actions:

  • the medicine’s pack must be quarantined/ withhold pack from saleable stock until the cause of the alert is resolved,
  • make sure that the cause of the alert is not a technical, procedural, or manual error,
  • if the alert is not identified on the end user's side, then the investigation of the alert should be started by contacting the marketing authorisation holder (MAH),
  • the marketing authorisation holder, the Latvian Medicines Verification Organisation or the Health Inspectorate may request a photo of the medicine pack that caused the alert for further investigation,
  • the alert and its investigation must be documented,
  • if necessary, the end user can ask for the support of the Latvian Medicines Verification Organisation and/or the Health Inspectorate.


MAH investigates the alert by performing the following steps and checking:

  • are there any data upload errors?
  • is there an error in the EU Hub?
  • communicates with the Latvian Medicines Verification Organisation about possible causes,
  • requests a photo of the pack from the end user,
  • in special cases, the pack can be requested from the end user.

If the cause of the alert is found, appropriate corrective measures must be taken, for example, the data upload error must be corrected, and the end user and the Latvian Medicines Verification Organisation must be informed.

In general, the investigation of alerts (L5 level errors) should follow the EMVO Alert Handling Guidelines. 

The other lower-level L1-L4 errors also generate system notifications that are visible to end users. In these cases, end users should act on the notification received and correct the error, such as changing the password, not distribute the expired medicine, etc.