PCI asks Pharm D institutions to celebrate Sept 17 as World Patient Safety Day

Chennai, September 4, 2021:

The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) wanted all the approved Pharm D institutions to celebrate first day of this year's National Pharmacovigilance Week (NPvW), which starts on September 17 and culminates on 23, as the World Patient Safety Day.

The exhortation by the PCI to the approved colleges to celebrate the PV week has come in the wake of the council's tie-up with the National Coordination Centre (NCC) of the PvPI for enrolling Pharm D institutions as ADR monitoring centres (AMCs).

NCC hopes that pharmacy council's participation will bring the institutions closer to the NCC under the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) to support the pharmacovigilance activities. The coordination centre has wanted the PCI to advise each Pharm D institution to take part in the PV week celebration programme. In addition to this, the participation of the colleges will help spread awareness among the students, teachers and the general public, both PCI and the NCC hope.

The theme of the first Pharmacovigilance Week Celebration is "Pharmacovigilance ---- A step towards Patient Safety".

The one week programme should include seminars, conferences, debates, poster presentations, quiz contests and essay writing. All are based on drug reactions, ADR reporting and the functioning of the AMCs, said a PCI circular to the colleges. To ensure the participation of institutions, PCI has called upon the institutions to submit a report of the programme to the council office in Delhi soon after it was conducted.

Talking to Pharmabiz, the officer-in-charge of the PV week celebration, Deepti Sachdeva, said this is the first time NCC is conducting the PV week celebration on the lines of pharmacy week celebration. She said, in certain states the colleges have opened and classes are going on in physical mode where the programme can be conducted in the way how conferences were held in pre-Covid period. According to Deepti, institutions from across the country are showing interest to celebrate the PV week. She further said many students of pharmacy, even the Pharm Ds, do not know what is pharmacovigilance. NCC has decided to conduct the one week celebration just to give awareness to the upcoming pharmacists about PvPI, ADR reporting and the functions of the AMCs.

According to sources from PCI and NCC, pharmacovigilance programme monitors the safety profile of medical products used in India. The organisers feel that the PV week celebration will serve as a platform for communication and knowledge enrichment to the various stakeholders in the field of safety of medical products for the ultimate benefit of patients. NCC encourages all hospitals, individuals and the civil society to participate in the NPvW celebration.

PharmaBiz