NEWS

National Anti-Doping Federations move into the digital age

By Merryn Sherwood | 24 Aug, 2011

A number of National Anti-Doping Federations have moved their drug databases into the digital age, with new mobile apps available for athletes in Switzerland, Ireland, Germany and South Africa this year.

Anti-doping Switzerland has had its drug-database for five years to provide athletes and support personnel with information about the prohibited status of substances in medications that are registered in Switzerland based on the current World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List. What started rather small with some thousand queries a year grew to more than 30,000 queries in 2010. A recent survey of top level athletes showed that about one third of the respondents used the drug-database more than three times in the last 12 months and only seven per cent did not use it at all. A total of 61% of the respondents judged the drug-database as a very important tool and 28% as an important information tool. Several athletes asked however for a mobile application.

Due to this positive feedback, Anti-doping Switzerland renewed their drug-database completely last May. It is now more clearly structured, the results are more concise (e.g. for one medication, all available concentrations are listed), all substances of a medication are listed, the drug-database is updated more frequently and a summary of product characteristics (SPC) is given. Moreover, one can now search not only for the medication itself but also for a substance.

Last month, their free app on the drug-database was approved by the iTunes store and can be found by clicking here. It is free and in German and French but they are considering adding in English in the near future.

Other countries that now have mobile drug databases include, Antidoping Ireland, German NADA and the South African Insitute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS).

Antidoping Ireland was the first country that provided a mobile solution for its drug-database. It can be found here

The German NADA started their mobile version of their drug database NADAmed for smart phones in February this year. It can be found here

Recently, iTunes just approved the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) phone app. It can be found here

Congratulations to all of the National Anti-doping Organisations for their continued effort to making all sports clean.