Aiming to help raise the rate of accessibility to essential medicines by the rural population of India, the department of pharmacy practice of the Tamil Nadu Annamalai University, in association with the community medicine department of Rajah Muthaiah Medical College, Chidambaram, will soon enter into a pact with Centre for Global Health, University of Michigan, USA to work out collaborative healthcare research projects.

The projects would help building up of informative data base to help the policy makers, health administrators, and program managers of health services to take evidence based intervention (steps required to be taken) to improve or promote health among the people of the region. This is usually not based on concept but based on evidence by the study report.

Two professors from the Michigan University visited Annamalai University on October 18, 2010 and held discussions with the vice-chancellor and the faculties of the department of pharmacy practice to formalize the modalities for the collaborative research work.

As per the proposed agreement between the two institutions, the Centre for Global Health of Michigan University would provide technical expertise and funding for the project, while the department of pharmacy practice of Annamalai University would implement it.  The project is proposed to be launched formally in January 2011 with the signing of an MoU at Annamalai University. The Director of Centre for Global Health, Dr Sofia Merjaver, and other officials of Michigan University are expected during the inking of the agreement.

According to professor Dr Guru Prasad Mohanta, head of department of pharmacy practice of Annamalai University, the access to essential medicines in our country, as per an earlier WHO report, is just 33 per cent against the global average of 66 per cent. This research study by the university will help to find out the reasons for this poor access and how this influences medication use at patients’ point. He said more than 50 per cent of the population worldwide do not use the medicines appropriately which lead to either no action or adverse effects.

He said two projects have been identified to begin with the collaborative research work, one is about the Medication Use Behaviours in Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases like Diabetes and Hypertension, and another is the development of an electronic registry for non-communicable diseases.

Speaking to Pharmabiz, Dr Mohanta said the two projects would help building up of informative data base to help the policy makers, health administrators, and program managers of health services to take evidence based intervention to improve or promote health among the people of the region. This is usually not based on concept but based on evidence by the study report.

When asked about the advantages of the collaboration, he said the study would be useful for developing evidence based data base which would lead to joint publication. Further the staff of the Annamalai University will get opportunities to get trained at Michigan (capacity building). He said the Michigan University can feel satisfied having contributed towards global equity as a social responsibility.

Dr Rani Kota, executive director and Dr Rajesh Balakrishnan, associate director of Education, Centre for Global Health of Michigan University took part in the discussions with University’s vice chancellor Dr M Ramanathan, Community Medicine professor Dr Ethiarajan and the pharmacy professors’ team comprising Dr R Manavalan, Dr P K Manna, Dr G P Mohanta, and Dr C K Dhanapal.

To further strengthen the tie-up, the University has appointed Professor Rajesh Balakrishnan of Michigan University as Adjunct Professor for Pharmacy Practice Department of Annamalai University.

Dr Mohanta said this new tie-up would boost the research activities in the area of Medication Use and Epidemiological Research in the University besides strengthening the Pharm. D. programme which has already been supported by University Grants Commission.