Pharmacovigilance in Nepal
Pharmacovigilance has been defined by the WHO (2002) as the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, unders tanding and prevention of adverse effect or any other drug related problems. The information generated by pharmacovigilance is useful in educating doctors about A DRs and in the official regulation of drug use. Its main purpose is to reduce the risk of drug related harm to the patient. It has an important role in the rational use of medicines, as it provides the basis for assessing safety or medicines.
Government of Nepal nominated Department of Drug Administration (DDA) in October 2004 as the focal point (National Pharmacovigilance centre) to liaison with WHO collaborating centre for International Drug Monitoring, Sweden and started collecting adverse drug reactions. Nepal became a WHO programme member in July 2006.
In continuation to 15 regional pharmacovigilance centers, the department recently recognized 2 additional hospitals in Makwanpur and Chitwan to further strengthen pharmacovigilance program.
At present, there are 17 regional pharmacovigilance centers in Nepal
These regional pharmacovigilance centers operate under DDA (DDA being the National centre for ADR monitoring). The regional centers reports ADRs to the National center (DDA) via ‘Vigiflow’ (an online program) which are then forwarded to the Uppsala Monitoring Center (UMC) by the National Centre.
The National database contains about 1204 ADR reports so far.
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