PHARMACOVIGILANCE OF HERBAL MEDICINES

Pharmacovigilance's goal is to identify, evaluate, and comprehend any negative effects or other potential drug-related issues associated with herbal, conventional, and complementary medicines in order to prevent them. Worldwide, herbal preparations are now widely accepted as effective treatments for conditions such as diabetes, arthritic pain, liver disease, cough and cold, memory improvement, and immune stimulation. Herbs are generally thought to be safe, and more people are consuming them without a prescription.Due to a number of complex issues, such as products with multiple ingredients, poor standardisation, a lack of clinical trials, variation in manufacturing processes, contamination, adulteration, and misidentification of herbs, for example, systematic data on the incidence of adverse effects associated with traditional medicine are not yet available. As a condition for global harmonisation, the World Health Organization has established specific guidelines for the evaluation of the quality, safety, and efficacy of herbal medicines.The UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has established a "yellow card" system for reporting adverse drug reactions in order to track the security of herbal medications. This review aims to offer a thorough and critical overview of the state of pharmacovigilance for herbal medications at the local, national, and international levels. This article examines the complex issues surrounding herbal pharmacovigilance while taking into account recent developments and offers suggestions to enhance safety monitoring in the future.