After a long gap of 30 years, the updated edition of National Formulary of India (NFI) will be available in the country soon as the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) is giving final touches to the NFI and will be published soon. This will be the fourth edition of the NFI and the third edition was published way back in 1979.According to sources, the IPC has almost finalised the new edition and will soon be distributed to the stakeholders like eminent doctors, pharmacists and even nurses in the country for their comments and suggestions before sending the much awaited reference material to final print.
The new edition will have around 1000 pages and will be available for the stakeholders at a nominal price which will be fixed at a later stage. Sources also said that around 1.5 lack copies will be printed in the first stage and after revising the edition and making it timely in tune with the growth of industry, the Commission will publish the editions on a regular basis, so that it reaches the stakeholders as a book of reference.
Experts are of the view that the restarting the publication of NFI is important especially in view of the fact that the category and doses of various medicines have not been included in the Indian Pharmacopoeia-2007. The various textbooks of pharmacology and medicine prescribe different doses schedule and one is at a loss which should be taken as a correct standard dose. The physicians, the pharmacists and the nurses are equally affected since the physician would not know the standard dose while pharmacists and nurses would not be able to correct the medication errors in doses in the absence of any standard text book.
