PHARMACOVIGILANCE AND AYURVEDA

Abstract

In the age of modern technology, scientific advancements, consumer awareness and the advent of evidence based medicine, there is inadequate genuine clinical trial evidence supporting the efficacy and safety of Ayurveda drugs, except that this system is practised since hundreds of years. Another fact that supports it is the rarity of any adverse effect ever reported. Even the IEC guidelines for human trials take shelter under the fact that Ayurvedic drugs are time tested and require no evidence base of clinical safety data for approval of their use in humans. But this is a limitation which all along has interfered in acceptance of Ayurvedic medicines in developed world as a health care system. Further, a common misconception prevails among the masses and also a large population of practitioners is that Ayurveda drugs are safe and do not have any adverse reaction. Pharmacovigilance is an important tool to analyse the drug effect particularly its side effects, if any. This paper outlines briefly the concept of Pharmacovigilance, and the implementation of National Pharmacovigilance Programme for Ayurveda, Sidhha, Unani Drugs.