Department of Pharmacology

Prof. Syed Ziaur Rahman, Chairman, Department of Pharmacology, JN Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, spoke at a special session on Eco-Pharmacovigilance during the 22nd annual meeting of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP) in Bali, Indonesia.

He discussed the impact of therapeutic and non-therapeutic medicines on the environment and shared several case reports of the after-effects of medicines on flora and fauna. Expressing concern over the drinking water being polluted by conventional medicines, he stated that the highest cumulative active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) concentration was observed in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and South America. In a study, 1052 sampling sites were monitored for 61 APIs along 258 rivers in 104 countries of all continents, representing the pharmaceutical fingerprint of 471.4 million people and showed the presence of contaminants in surface water that poses threat to both environment and human health.

The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored, with the presence of pharmaceuticals in food and drinking water sources, he added.

Dr. Rahman, who is the General Secretary, Society for Pharmacovigilance, India (SoPI), is presently representing India for the Special Interest Group (SIG) of Eco-Pharmacovigilance as well as Herbal and TM.

In the same conference, Dr. Sreemedha Chaudhary (JR-III), Dept. of Pharmacology, presented a poster on ADRs of oral hypoglycemic drugs in elderly diabetic patients.