Importance of pharmacovigilance in herbal medicine and herb-drug interactions is apparent for the identification and assessment of associated risks.Clinical studies and case reports have identified a number of herb-drug interactions. Drugs like warfarin,digoxin,cyclosporine, tacrolimus, amitriptyline etc.usually have a narrow margin of safety and a high potential to interact with herbal medicines. Some very commonly used herbal drugs such as garlic (Allium sativum), ginger (Zingiber officinallis),ginkgo(Ginkgo biloba),and ginseng (Panax ginseng) etc. are reported to interact with conventional drugs. The clinical consequence of herb-drug interactions may vary fom moderate to serious adverse reactions. The multitude of pharmacologically active compounds in herbal drugs bviously increases the possibility of interactions to take place.Hence,the likelihood of herb–drug interactions is supposedly higher than drug– drug interactions.Pharmacovigilance whose purpose is to detect, assess, and understand, and to prevent the adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problems may prove very much helpful in this regard.The purpose of this paper is to impart significance of pharmacovigilance in herb-drug interactions in the light of the published studies.

Keywords: Herbal medicine; Drug interaction; Pharmacovigilance; Drug safety.