Scope of Pharmacovigilance for Ayurvedic Drugs in Nepal: A Review

Abstract

Ayurveda along with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) systems  have their own principles, have their own pharmacopeia, but are practiced as  over the counter drugs without an authentic prescription. 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 (IDM), Sweden and  started collecting adverse drug reactions (Nepal became a WHO program  member in July 2006). Nepal joined the international pharmacovigilance  program as a full member in 2007. This study is to reflect the present status of  pharmacovigilance in Nepal and put light on scope of pharmacovigilance on  drugs of Ayurveda and other complementary alternative systems in Nepal. For  which review and analysis of concerned published literatures in print form and  in online database. At present; 12 regional pharmacovigilance centers are there  in Nepal. Currently, the clear pattern and scope of adverse drug reactions  (ADRs) in Nepal remains unexplored. For Ayurveda drugs the concept of  pharmacovigilance is not yet formally introduced in Nepal. No policy has been  formulated for the same. The conventional belief that Ayurveda drugs have no  ADRs should be transformed.