The Gujarat Pharmacy Council will soon launch online facility for filing applications for the diploma and degree holders in pharmacy for new registration. This would be the first of its kind in the country that a state pharmacy council accepts application through online for registering the new pharmacists, said Pradip Trivedi, president of Gujarat Pharmacy Council.

Ninety percent of the work for the new initiative has been already completed and the facility would come into being from the beginning of 2011. The number and certificate of registration will also be issued to the students by online.

The Council will also form a Drug Information Centre (DIC), which will also be fulfilled in the coming year.  In the beginning the Centre will start functioning in a separate room of the Council office in Ahmedabad. Later on, it will be shifted to a permanent building of its own, Trivedi said.

The centre would provide authentic drug information to healthcare professionals and general public, and plans to give counselling to patients and consumers besides monitoring and documenting adverse drug reactions. The purpose of the DIC is to serve health care professionals throughout the state by answering critical questions on drug use and its side effects and reactions.

“We are exploring the facilities of the two government universities conducting M Pharm Courses in Gujarat. MS University, Baroda and Saurashtra University, Rajkot are the two universities conducting PG Courses in Pharmacy, where facilities are more and that would be utilized for this purpose. Twenty five percent of the work for the establishment of the centre has been completed and the remaining work including selection of staff would be completed soon”, Trivedi said.

According to him, the Information centre would be helpful for both the doctors and the Pharmacists besides providing unbiased information to the public. He said the centre would collect authentic information about the drugs from various pharmacopoeias and US FDA sites.

In the beginning, the functioning of the centre would be restricted to office hours and later on it would be converted into a 24-hour functioning centre. Likewise, it has been decided that the centre would disseminate information about allopathic drugs in the initial stages and about Ayush, the details would be shared later on.