Karnataka State Pharmacy Council (KSPC)'s Drug Information Centre (DIC) is in the process of setting up five independent Drug Information Centres (DICs) across the country beginning from third week of January 2007.

The DICs will be commissioned by January end. The World Health Organisation India country office funds the project. No details of the funds were disclosed. These centres would provide a fillip to the rational use of drugs among medical professionals and consumers.

The five states identified for the project are Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Assam and Goa. The selected centre will act as a state level drug information centre to provide the required details of the drug. It will also conduct awareness programmes to spread the concept of DIC in the states.

Further it will also organize consumer awareness meets on medicine usage, educate hospital and community pharmacists in Good Pharmacy Practices.

The 5 DICs are also expected to send a monthly report on the progress of activities for an initial period of two years and thereafter on the request of KSPC and WHO India country office.

The centres are started with the intention of dissemination of authentic unbiased drug information to medical and paramedical professionals and patients or consumers, said PK Lakshmi, director, Drug Information Centre, Karnataka State Pharmacy Council who is also the in-house trainer and chief investigator of the project.

The key objective of the project is to establish an independent or hospital attached drug information centre in selected states. While the four of the DICs are independent operations, the Assam DIC is attached to Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh.

It will have tailor-made counselling procedures, which includes information of medicines for patients, monitoring adverse drug reactions within the hospital and documenting the process of setting up of drug information centres.

The DIC of KSPC identified the five states based on their interest in drug information dissemination. Another requirement was infrastructure like computer, printer, Internet connectivity etc. The minimum qualification for working at the DIC is post graduation in pharmacy or an MD in pharmacology.

As a part of the funding, the 5 DICs will receive a one-time assistance of Rs 25,000 for reference books and Rs 5,000 monthly for recurring expenses for a period of six months. The DICs are expected to manage their revenue generation thereafter, stated Lakshmi.

For the representatives of the five DICs, a five day drug information training programme was organized in Bangalore at the KSPC office where senior drug information practitioner of Austin Health, Melbourne Graeme M Vernon provided the participants the much required support to activate the DIC operations in the five states.

The decade old KSPC's DIC has two hospital-based drug information centres in Bangalore: Victoria Hospital and Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital. The technical support and database are provided free of cost.

Several training programmes have been organized to train both pharmacists and doctors.