Going ahead with its plan to strengthen the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI), the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) recently enrolled 60 new Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) monitoring centres across the country, bringing the total of ADR centres to 150.

With the aim to improve patient safety and reduce the risk associated with the use of medicines, blood and blood products, IPC has enrolled the new ADR monitoring centres in different states and union territories under the aegis of PvPI programme. This centres will actively play an important role in ensuring successful implementation of the pharmacovigilance as well as hemovigilance programme.

At present, there are 90 medical colleges, and hospitals across the country registered under the PvPI programme, playing a very important role in monitoring and signaling timely updates on the ADR reports of the drugs running in the market. Dr G N Singh, secretary cum scientific director of the IPC, stressed that these ADR monitoring centres are not sufficient to monitor the safety of the entire 1.27 billion Indian population therefore 60 new ADR monitoring centres were inducted in the programme which will not only help in strengthening but also devising an effective monitoring system across the country.

It is understood that of the 60 new ADR monitoring centres, eight are in Andhra Pradesh, one each in Assam, Chhattisgarh, Manipur, Odisha, and Meghalaya; two each in Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Uttrakhand, Madhya Pradesh; three each in Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan; four each in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and six ADR centres in Uttar Pradesh.

Dr Singh, said that along with 90 existing ADR monitoring centres these new centres also will play a vital role in monitoring the safety of medicines. Emphasising the need to streamline the growth of the PvPI further and make the PvPI largest in the world, Dr Singh informed that the IPC plans to include all the 350 medical colleges across the country in a phased manner under its fold. Through this initiative, IPC which acts as the National Coordinating Centre (NCC) for PvPI, plans to make the Indian pharmacovigilance programme as one of the most established and elaborate programmes in the world.