IMA, 2 medical bodies to promote adverse drug reax reporting

New Delhi: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) today signed a letter of intent with the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission and National Coordination Centre for Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI) to devise ways to promote adverse drug reactions reporting in the country.

Speaking about the partnership, IMA's Secretary General Dr K K Aggarwal said, "Together we will work towards promoting the cause of drug safety in our country.

"We will be sensitising all our 2.5 lakh IMA members about the importance of reporting all adverse drug reactions in their day-to-day practices to help improve their standards," he said.

The Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) is an autonomous institution of the Ministry of Health, which was created to set standards of medicines commonly used for treatment of diseases prevailing in our country.

The IPC has been functioning as the National Coordination Centre (NCC) for PvPI since April 15, 2011 to monitor all adverse drug reactions taking place in the country.

The mission of PvPI is to safeguard the health and welfare of the Indian population by monitoring drug safety and ensuring that the benefits of use of medicine outweigh the associated risks.

The bodies have agreed to work on a PvPI-IMA patient safety monitoring cell, which will be started at the IMA Head Quarters in New Delhi, besides organising Continuing Medical Educations (CMEs), disseminating PvPI information/concept of Pharmacovigilance (PV).

As a part of the drive, the IMA will identify the nodal centers for education/advocacy and adverse drug reactions (ADR) monitoring, and Delhi members through its journals, news portals will recommend to NCC-PvPI for recognition and providing training to the nodal coordinators and medical officers and propagate the concept of drug safety to patients. PLB HU