Online information on medicines

The website www.yaandyou.net will explain the properties and use of any medicine about which Internet users may be uncertain.

Ya and You is the result of a three-year collaboration between the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) and the Pharmaceutical Research and Development Foundation, aimed at preventing death and injury as a result of people using the wrong medicine or administering a medicine incorrectly.

Foundation secretary general Sauwakon Ratanawijittrasin said yaandyou.net listed the names of 17,000 commercial medicines from 700 generic families, and in 900 dose forms. These covered all types, including orally-administered medicine, that for external use only and drops for ears and eyes.

"With an advanced search, users can look for medicines by using commercial names, generic names, and even the symptoms of a disease," Sauwakorn said.

The website's current features include the properties of drugs, dosages, warnings, side effects, toxicity, active ingredients, action, indications and precautions against adverse effects. Most of the information is text-based, but there are also has photographs of dose forms.

Future plans are for increased features, including an image search, an Internet map showing the locations of drug stores throughout the country, a wiki session allowing doctors to offer help and advice on medical usage and a text-to-speech feature allowing computers to read information for disable people. 

Nectec' s executive director, Pansak Siriruchatapong, said the yaandyou.net website was part of Nectec's Smart Health flagship, which aimed to improve the quality of life for Thai people. The website provides equal opportunities for people to access information about medicines and dosage.

"Nectec will support all the technical systems, server and hosting," Pansak said.