Introduction:The COVID-19 outbreak created a major panic among all the citizens of the country owing to its severity, contagiousness within the community, lack of specific treatment and possibility of re-infection. All these factors along with the uncertain behaviour of the virus lead to state of fear and concern all throught out the nation. The current study represents the mental health survey conducted on the students of South Indiaafter the completion of one month quarantine period of the COVID-19 outbreak. Methodology:The present study is a cross-sectional, web-based online survey which consists of 21-item DASS questionnaire. Thiswas used to assess the emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress. Using Google Forms, the questionnaire was randomly distributed among the pharmacy students of selected colleges. Mean with standard deviation was calculated for continuous variables and the number with percentage was calculated for categorical variables.Results: A total of 500 participants responded to the questionnaire. More than half of the responses were received from females (65%). On assessment it was found that, 26 % of respondents reported severe to extremely severe depressive symptoms; 31.5 % of respondents reported severe to extremely severe anxiety symptoms, and 19 % reported severe to extremely severe stress levels. Conclusion:In India during the outbreak of COVID-19, an alarming number of students were found to have an impact on mental health due to the outbreak and were observed to have higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. The study findings shows the need of conducting more such studies and can be used to prepare appropriate psychological interventions to improvemental health among the young public during the pandemic.

Misuse of antimicrobials has become one of the grave concerns of public health. In last two decades, this has been largely contributing in the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among all the pathogens. A 2013 report of Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, USA figured that at least 2 million people get an antibiotic-resistant infection every year and as many as 23,000 people lost their life. A multi-country survey in Southeast Asia region conducted by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, identified several gaps in knowledge and awareness about the optimal use of antimicrobials and AMR. Following this, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, developed National Action Plan in the year 2017 to combat AMR. Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI) being a flagship programme of MoHFW holds the responsibility of ensuring safety of medicines used by India population and has recently identified AMR as one of the strategic priorities. This article intends to provide insights of the recent attempts and deliberate efforts made by PvPI in the containment of AMR in India and it also intends to sensitize healthcare fraternity on restricting AMR in public interest.

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