Ecopharmacovigilance: Current state, challenges, and opportunities in China

In a context of severe pharmaceutical pollution, “ecopharmacovigilance” (EPV) has been an area of novel interest. It aims to ensure that significant environmental issues associated with pharmaceuticals in the environment are identified in a timely way, and managed appropriately. EPV has become a research hotspot as a comprehensive and boundary science in Europe and North America, and regulatory requirements governing the comprehensive environmental risk assessment (ERA) of pharmaceuticals exist in these regions. A speedy Chinese pharmaceutical industry development and drug consumption, China should shoulder more international responsibility and contribute to the worldwide EPV. Compared to the west, EPV in China is in its infancy. We analyzed the current state of EPV-related practice in China and found that many efforts have been made by the Chinese government and specialists to control the ever-worsening environmental pharmaceutical pollution problems, including consummating related policies and regulations, revealing the occurrence and behavior of pharmaceutical residues in environment and developing new technologies to improve their removal performance. Besides, we posed some recommendations on appropriate EPV implementation that can be taken with China in future. These include, building perfect laws and regulation system on EPV, defining the evaluation index for EPV, continuing the clinical rational medication and the pharmaceutical take-back programs in China, popularizing the concept of EPV in China, and strengthening the policy-guided and scientific researches of EPV in pharmaceutical firms and academia.