The Tamil Nadu Pharmacy Council has launched its much awaited programme of evaluation of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) in selected five districts in the state including the capital. As a first step, the programme is focusing on finding out the adverse reactions of antibiotics used by patients in the government hospitals.

This is the first time a state pharmacy council is implementing such a programme as per the norms of World Health Organization through the Central Drugs Control Directorate, said the registrar of the Council Dr T Elango. Apart from Chennai, the districts selected are Salem, Trichy, Coimbatore and Nilgiris.

For the process of these findings, including evaluation and data collection, the Council has constituted a separate seven member committee (ADR Committee) with a senior member of the Tamil Nadu Medical Council as chairman.

The ADR committee, which is the statutory body, in their separate sitting, has formed a panel of five academicians from various pharmacy colleges to help them in their endeavour in the evaluation process.

In the national level, the Centre has formed a committee to evaluate the ADR with director general of Health Services as chairman and DCGI as secretary. Both medical and drugs control departments are vested with the responsibility of this evaluation program.

The evaluation of adverse drug reactions and the following data collection will be done as per the instructions given by the Drug Controller General of India. The data will be collected in a special proforma received from the DCGI office, and in the end of each phase the reports will be sent to the DCGI office in Delhi. The DCGI then forward the data to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for assessing and confirming the adverse reactions. AIIMS is the approved institute to assess the ADR reports. The final report will be sent to the WHO by the DCGI office, the council registrar told Pharmabiz.

He said already 61 countries in the world have started the programme of this adverse drug reaction evaluation.

The five member action committee will assist the medical officers in each district to verify the reports and the doctors are entitled to sign the report. For field work the committee will seek the co-operation of community pharmacists also. The pharmacists will be given a drug card to assess the details. All the programs are co-ordinated by the state pharmacy council.

The heads of various pharmaceutical departments of Sri Ramakrishna College of Pharmacy, Coimbatore, Sri Ramachandra College of Pharmacy, Chennai, JSS College of Pharmacy Ootty, Periyar College of Pharmacy, Trichy and Vinayaka college of Pharmacy, Salem are the members of the five member Action Committee formed by the statutory body. The Committee will initiate to collect the data in their respective districts. In addition to this, the members of the Indian Medical Association will also assist the team, Dr.Elango said.

Dr P M Balasubramaniam, member of the TN Medical Council and TN Pharmacy Council is the Chairman of the ADR committee.

The other members of the forum are Dr B Jaikar, principal, Vinayaka College of Pharmacy, Salem, Dr S Jayasree, HoD, Department of Pharmacognosy, Madras Medical College, Dr Sairam, HoD, Sri Ramakrishna College of Pharmacy, Coimbatore, Dr Bangaru Rajan, assistant drugs controller, A Balakrishnan, drug inspector and president and vice-president of the state pharmacy council. The Council registrar is the co-coordinator of the programme.