Pharmacovigilance started about 170 years ago, although it was not yet named as such at that time. It is structured activity in the professional health field, with important social and commercial implications aimed at monitoring the risk/benefit ratio of drugs, improving patient’s safety and the quality of life. In this commentary we report the milestones of pharmacovigilance up to the present day, in order to understand all the steps that have characterized the historical evolution; from the first reports, which were essentially letters or warnings sent by clinicians to publishers of important and famous scientific journals, up to today’s modern and ultrastructured electronic registries. The historical phases also help us to understand why pharmacovigilance helped us to achieve such important results for man’s health and for pharmacology itself, and to identify the challenges that await Pharmacovigilance in future years.

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are a major concern in clinical practice. Reporting of ADRs either through health care professionals or the patients themselves is of utmost importance to give an accurate estimate of the prevalence, severity and preventability of ADRs. Present study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence of adverse drug reactions in a tertiary care hospital in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. This was a retrospective observational study, extending over 3 months (December 2020 to February 2021). A total of 41 cases comprising patients of either sex or age group were studied. The data was collected using CDSCO ADR reporting form. A total of 41 ADRs were reported during the three months period of study. During the study period a total of 41 ADR reports were received from various departments of the hospital. We observed 25 ADRs in females and 16 ADRs in males from our study. Among the age groups, 3 ADRs in age group 0 – 19 Yrs., 28 ADRs were seen in age group 20 – 59 Yrs., and 10 ADRs were seen in age group >60 Yrs. Maximum number of ADRs came from General Medicine department 17 (41.46%). Drug therapy 41 (100%) and diseases 19 (46.34%) were the most prominent predisposing factors of ADRs seen in our hospital. Causality assessment of suspected drugs was assessed using Naranjo scale. According to Naranjo scale most of the reported ADRs were found to be probable 23 (56.9%) followed by possible 16 (39.02%) and definite 2 (4.8%). The severities of the reactions were done using Hart Wig Scale. Majority of the reactions were mild 25 (60.97%). Withdrawal of the drug 5 (12.19%) was the main line of the management of the adverse drug reactions in the present study. Majority of serious ADRs were preventable in our study. ADRs are a major cause of morbidity worldwide. Frequency of ADRs can be reduced by careful follow up and a robust hospital-based pharmacovigilance setup. A measure to improve detection and reporting of adverse drug reactions by all health care professi