In order to get pan India adverse drugs reaction (ADR) information, government is planning to roll out the pharmacovigilance programme at district level hospitals in a couple of months time. Ghaziabad based Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) is in the process of identifying 20 new adverse drug monitoring centres (AMCs) under the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI) at district level healthcare institutions
Special thrust will be given to identify AMCs that had no ADR centres from the existing set of 210 AMCs in the country.
To further widen the scope of PvPI and strengthen evidence based information, government had also upgraded 10 per cent of its technical data associates (TDA) last year to the cadre of senior technical data associates working in over 100 AMCs across the country under PvPI.
TDAs collect information from the patients, perform follow up with them, enter information in the prescribed software (Vigiflow) and sending them to IPC for further analysis and documentation.
IPC has been assigned to update information on ADRs that is being reported in India from across all its centres through Vigiflow software to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC) in Sweden, which is WHO's collaborating centre for international drug monitoring. Vigiflow is a software given to the PvPI free of cost and prescribed to AMCs based on their efficiency to deliver in terms of frequency and quality of reports.
TDAs working under PvPI currently get support from the pharmacology division of the respective medical institutions to carry out their functions as a part of the programme. IPC which is the national coordination centre (NCC) for PvPI serves as a nodal agency for the AMCs.
Medical colleges, hospitals and institutes approved by the Medical Council of India (MCI) can act as AMCs. Once enrolled they are required to efficiently collect the adverse event information from the patients, do follow up with them to check the completeness of the ADR reports. IPC is keen on bringing the hospitals under the rural and urban areas under its fold.
Around 210 registered AMCs across the country play an important role in timely reporting of adverse drug reaction to IPC. Once enrolled NCC provides logistic and technical support to AMCs for their smooth functioning.