Ansari Says Pharmacovigilance is an Important Issue of Public Health

Pharmacovigilance is an important issue of public health and the government appreciates its need for the common citizen, Vice President Dr. M. Hamid Ansari has said. Delivering inaugural address at the "International Conference on Pharmacovigilance and Rational Use of Medicines", Dr. Ansari said: "I am no man of medicine and do not understand the technical intricacies of the subject. Yet, pharmacovigilance is an important issue of public health and should be of concern for the common citizen. The government and the regulatory authorities in the country fully appreciate the need for pharmacovigilance."

Dr. Ansari said that since there are perceptions like drugs that are prohibited in the developed nations for their serious adverse effects are available and used in the developing world, effective pharmacovigilance systems that are integrated with the drug control processes are essential for public safety.

He further said that effective pharmacovigilance is dependent on a comprehensive collection of all data and incidents of adverse drug effects, analyses of the data and effective feedback to enable regulation of the use of drugs.

Dr. Singh said the Central government has initiated a well-structured and highly participative National Pharmacovigilance Programme with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation.

"The National Programme engages various stakeholders such as doctors, pharmacy professionals, the pharmaceutical industry, clinical research organisations and academics," said Dr. Ansari.

He further said the programme also envisages several Peripheral Centres pooling data at Regional Centres and thereafter at Zonal Centres for scale of the logistics.

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The Vice President said regulatory authorities are also approving an increasing number of new drugs for marketing and use in the country.

Source-ANI