Early Times Report
JAMMU, June 25: The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Vijaypur, Jammu has been recognised as an Adverse Drug Reactions Monitoring Centre under the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India ( PvPI), an official here said on Sunday. Dr. Sonia Shinde Mahajan, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Deputy Co-ordinator, Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Centre, AIIMS, Vijaypur, Jammu said that the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India was launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India (GoI) in 2010 with its National Co-ordinating Centre at the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), Ghaziabad. Presently, there are about 250 adverse drug reaction monitoring centres (AMCs) recognised under PvPI.
She revealed that the mandate of the Adverse Drug Reactions Monitoring Centre of Jammu AIIMS is to report as much as possible the adverse drug reactions (ADRs) occurring in the Institute and those reported from the adjoining areas, hospitals, and health centres to the NCC PvPI, perform causality assessment of the reported ADRs, report the findings to all the stakeholders, to create awareness among the masses and ways of reporting them, organise educational activities, workshops, and CMEs for healthcare professionals and to focus on the prevention of ADRs.
"In today's world, mankind is exposed to various perils, making safety of prime importance, be it road safety, workplace safety or safety in our homes. The same applies to medicines, too. Each day we all consume some medicine or the other," the expert said.
Dr Mahajan added that as much as the effectiveness of medicines is to be observed, it is equally important to consider their safety, all medicines are liable to produce adverse effects and the probability of it occurring is there whenever they are taken.
She explained that Pharmacovigilance is defined by the World Health Organization as the "science that deals with the detection, assessment, understanding and reporting of adverse effects of medicines or any other drug-related problems".
The ADRs can be reported by the healthcare professionals such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, consumers/ patients and pharmaceutical companies, institutes, she said adding that it can be reported through suspected Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Forms, for healthcare professionals, patients and consumers, which is available in languages like English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Bengali.
"ADRs are preventable and can be prevented by reporting them for their safety," said Dr Mahajan. |
