Most pharmaceutical products are distributed in more than one country. At the moment the Braille characters for the letters A-Z and the numbers 0-9 (with the exception of France) are the same throughout Europe. However, each country’s Braille authority has often differing specifications for accented characters, symbols and punctuation. To be more cost effective and to reduce the possibility of making errors in Braille for pharmaceutical packaging the packaging industry would benefit from being able to use just one Braille code across the European Union. With that ultimate goal in mind the European Blind Union has issued a proposal for a standard E.U. Pharmaceutical Braille Table.

The EBU carried out a review of the Braille codes across the EU and have come up with proposals to achieve a single Braille character set for pharmaceutical labelling. Their proposed guidelines provide definitive answers to the many frequently asked questions we receive here at PharmaBraille about how Braille code should be implemented, such as spacing, abbreviations, capitalisation and fitting Braille on the pack.

We at PharmaBraille welcome the progress made to develop a standard for Pharmaceutical Braille and have already started work on a European Pharmaceutical Braille Standard font set. The fonts will follow the EBU proposals as set out below.

The EBU Proposals for Pharmaceutical Braille

Capitalisation

All Braille letters will be treated as lower case, without the need for a capitalisation indicator.

Main Roman Alphabet

Use the main Roman alphabet

Numbers

Numbers will be represented as shown in the Braille Code where the country accepts the proposed code. The way in which numbers are represented in each country are also given in each countries Braille code that can be accessed on the web pages. All countries with the exception of France in the EU use the letters a – j, preceded by a Braille “number sign” ( a # symbol in print), to represent the numbers 1 – 9 and 0. France has indicated they wish to adhere to their own numbering convention.

Roman Numerals

As with Fractions, Decimal (Arabic) numbers are used in place of Roman numbers.

Accented characters

It is proposed that dot 4 precedes the Roman letter equivalent to indicate any letter which is accented.

As Braille has developed over many years and countries, accommodation has had to be made in Braille codes for accented characters. As only 63 combinations of the six Braille dots are possible, 26 of which are used for Roman letters, only 37 characters are left to accommodate accented characters and punctuation.

There are at least 30 identified accented characters used throughout Europe. As each country has developed its own Braille standards, so the Braille character used has varied.

For example the letter ä (letter a with dieresis) appears as (dot 4) in Slovak countries and as (Dots 345) elsewhere in the E.U.

The proposed solution works as follows, as an example, the letter ä (letter a with dieresis) would appear as (dot 4, dot 1) and the letter á (letter a with acute accent) would also appear as (dot 4, dot 1).

Continuing this example, since there could be six accented forms for the letter a, this may appear potentially confusing the readers. However, there are very few cases where more than one form of an accented character is used in any one language, and therefore end users are unlikely to be confused.

Diphthongs and Ligatures

Diphthongs and Ligatures should be represented by the individual characters.

Number Sign

Numbers are indicated by dots 3456. With one exception (France), dots 3456 (#) are used before the letters A – J to represent numbers 1 – 0. It is not necessary to leave a space between a number and the symbol if the number is followed by a symbol or abbreviation that is not A-J as these are used as numbers and could therefore cause confusion. Also if you have a string of numbers you don’t need to repeat the number sign.

Letter Sign

Where the letters a – j immediately follow a number (i.e. unspaced) the letter is preceded by dots 56. Letters k and above would not require a letter sign as they can not be confused for a number.

To avoid confusion over the understanding of, for example, “1a”, being read as either “1a” or as the number 11, the letter sign should be used up to letter j (which represents 0). Hence the proposal would result in “1a” appearing unambiguously in Braille as dots 3456, dot 1, and dots 56, dot 1.

Comma, (thousands separator-UK only), decimal point

Where a print comma (U+002C) is used, regardless of its meaning, dot 2 will be used. Many EU Blind organisations agree that the print comma is shown as Braille dot 2. It should be noted that in Europe this is also used as the decimal point, i.e. 1,5 = One point five.

Per cent

Use the letters of the local print abbreviation, e.g. “pc”

There are 9 variations in use in the 23 countries for which information is available. Clearly trying to reach agreement for the actual print Per Cent (%) would be a major exercise. The EBU Braille code recommends the use of “pc” however if a country is not prepared to accept this you should check how the symbol should be presented or if you can use the local abbreviation. Hence “pc” in many countries, but for example “pz” (prozent) in Germany.

Per mille

Use the letters of the local print abbreviation, e.g. “pm”

Grams

Grams are represented by the letter g spaced from the preceding number.

Milligrams

Use the letters of the local print abbreviation, e.g. “mg”. One exception to the suggested “mg” is Poland.

Micrograms or “µg”

Use the letters of the local print abbreviation, e.g. “mcg”. The suggestion is “mcg”, but in some countries it is “mkg””.

Litres

Litres are represented by the letter l spaced from the preceding number.

Decilitres

Use the letters of the local print abbreviation, e.g. “dl”.

Millilitres

Use the letters of the local print abbreviation, e.g. ml”.

Trade ® & Registered ™ Marks

Trade ™(U+2122) & Registered ® (U+00AE) Marks should not be included as these are not considered necessary for drug identification, and would use additional space.

Abbreviations

Some additional abbreviations have been requested by the pharmaceutical industry as follows. The proposed Braille code is contained in EBU Braille Code, and listed below. The EBU Braille code gives the abbreviation that has been agreed by some EU countries. Alternatively, use the letters of the local print abbreviation.

i. e. Internationale Einheiten: show as “ie”
i. m. intra muscular: show as “im”
i. v. intravenous, show as “iv”
MIU million international units: show as “miu”
s. c. subcutaneous: show as “sc”
SR sustained relief: show as “sr”
U. I. Unites Internationales: show as “ui”

About the European Blind Union

The European Blind Union is a non-governmental, non profit making European organisation founded in 1984. It is one of the six regional bodies of the World Blind Union, and it promotes the interests of blind people and people with low vision in Europe.

It currently operates within a network of 45 national members including organisations from all 27 European Union member states, candidate nations and other major countries in geographical Europe.