The National Pharmacy Week Celebrations 2015 organized by Amrita School of Pharmacy concluded on December 7, 2015. The theme of this year’s pharmacy week was “Responsible use of Antibiotics Saves lives”. This is to generate increasing awareness about antibiotic resistance.

As part of National Pharmacy Week, various awareness programs were conducted at the Amrita Health Sciences Campus. The celebrations started with street plays by Pharm D. Second-year and Sixth-year (interns) students at Amrita Vidyalayam, Edappally. The mind-blowing performances by the students were appreciated and the messages were conveyed to general public. The next few days, students and faculty members actively participated in patient counselling at Primary Health Centre, Edappally. Around 400 patients were counselled on rational use of drugs. Street plays were also performed at different venues at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (Atrium, B block and Amriteswari Hall).

Poster competition and essay writing competitions were conducted for all students as a part of the celebrations.

On the closing day of National Pharmacy Week celebrations, an introductory note was given by Dr. Umadevi P., Assistant Professor, Pharmacology, regarding the theme of this year, where she mentioned about the causes, possible solutions and measures to control antimicrobial resistance.

Two sessions were also held. The first session was chaired by Dr. B. Ranganathan, Assistant Professor, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Amrita School of Pharmacy. Dr. V. Anilkumar, Associate Professor, Microbiology, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences was the speaker and he discussed “Mechanism of Antimicrobial Resistance.” After a brief introduction, current issues related to resistance and inherent resistance were discussed.

The second session was chaired by Mr. Emmanuel James, Associate Professor, Pharmacy Practice, Amrita School of Pharmacy. Dr. Anup R Warrier, Consultant, Department of Infectious Diseases & Hospital Infection Control, Aster Medcity was the speaker who presented on “PK-PD of Antibiotics in Clinical Practice.”

There were case presentations by Ms. Liniya Sunny (Pharm D. PB 2013 batch student) and Ms. Sai Keerthana, Parvathy Krishnan & Aneesh Baby of Pharm. D. 2010 batch students.

The program concluded with prize distribution for poster and essay competition by Dr. Sabitha M, Principal, Amrita School of Pharmacy. The third prize for the poster presentation was bagged by Bharat Biju of Pharm.D. 2012 batch student and Shyamaprasad of Pharm. D. PB 2015 batch student. The second prize was won by Meghana Vinod, Jiya Marium George and Rose Jose of Pharm. D. 2014 batch student. The first prize was bagged by Remya Antony, Jini James & Christeena George of Pharm D. 2011 batch student. The first prize for the essay competition was bagged by Athira Anilkumar (B. Pharm 2014 batch student), second prize was won by Parvathy S. (M. Pharm Pharmaceutics 2015 batch student) and third prize was won by Anagha C.C. and Elizabeth C. Ninan (Pharm D 2012 batch student). Remya Antony (Pharm. D. 2011 batch student) delivered the vote of thanks.