A three-day workshop and an international conference on ‘Pharmacovigilance -- Promoting Drug Safety through Collaboration’ will take place at Seth G S Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai from December 4 to 6.

The workshop and the conference will be organized by the Adverse Drugs Reactions Monitoring Centre of the Drugs Controller General of India and WHO Special Centre. This will be preceded by a workshop on ‘Pharmacovigilance: From Identification to Reporting’ on December 4 targeting new entrants in the area of pharmacovigilance. The workshop will be followed by an international meeting on ‘Pharmacovigilance - Promoting Drug Safety through Collaboration’ on December 5 and 6.

According to Dr Nilima Kshirsagar, vice-president, ADR Monitoring Centre and Dean, Professor and Head of Clinical Pharmacology, KEM Hospital; “The meet has been specifically designed to identify techniques and newer approaches in the field of Pharmacovigilance that would help in educating the end-users especially the new entrants. We hope the deliberations would prove useful in emulating new guidelines in the field of pharmacovigilance,” she elaborated.

Key international speakers who would be present at the meet include; Dr Mary Couper, Switzerland (WHO); Prof Ralph Edwards, Sweden (Uppsala Monitoring Centre); Dr Robin Ferner, UK; Dr Gerd Kassel, Germany and Dr Krisantha Weerasuriya (WHO SEARO, New Delhi) among the others.

Some of the topics that will be covered are: Benefits and Hazards of Reporting; The Casualty Analysis; When, Where and How to report an Adverse Event; Pathways for Pharmacovigilance - A vision for the future and Integrating Pharmacovigilance into Education, among the others.