Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7661

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Publication type: Journal Article

Vidotti CC, Pereira DM, Marin NJ.
Drug nomenclature in Brazil: The official project "Harmonization of drug and excipients nomenclature for use in medicines"
International Pharmaceutical Federation World Congress 2002; 62:(147):

Abstract:

Since 1952, WHO has been publishing the International Nonproprietary Names (INN). The lack of use of this terminology in Brazil is leading to several problems like duplication on names in government database, mistakes in registration process, making medication errors easier to happen. The purpose of this project is to establish national nomenclature rules and update the actual names. This one year Project is dived in six basic steps: 1. Establish national nomenclature rules for drugs and excipients; 2. Establish national translation rules; 3. Built a thesaurus; 4. Update the Brazilian Nonproprietary Names (DenominacAo Comum Brasileira -DCB); 5. Update the Anvisa/Project Z database about nomenclature of drugs and excipients; 6. Publish a Manual that will consolidated the information generated in the Project. This Project will start in April 2002 and the firsts results will be shown in the Congress. Information about it can be found at Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency – Anvisa website (www.anvisa.gov.br). We hope that this Project can help the government, the pharmaceutical industry, the health professionals and, in consequence, the medicines users. The best use of drug names, when, e.g., registering, quality control, prescribing, administration, dispensing, using, can help in avoiding errors in these processes.