The World Health Organization said traditional medicine plays a pivotal role in the health and well-being of people, and should be seen as complementary to modern medicine and be integrated into national health systems.
“Traditional medicine can play an important and catalytic role in achieving the goal of Universal Health Coverage and meeting global health-related targets that were off-track even before the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General.
“Bringing traditional medicine into the mainstream of health care— appropriately, effectively, and above all, safely based on the latest scientific evidence—can help bridge access gaps for millions of people around the world. It would be an important step toward people-centered and holistic approaches to health and well-being.”
His comments come as the WHO from Friday convenes the traditional medicine global summit in India.
The summit is exploring the role of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine in addressing pressing health challenges, and driving progress in global health and sustainable development.
"We are seeing a lot of increasing demand and increasing interest in traditional medicine at the moment," said Rudi Eggers, WHO director for integrated health services. "Traditional medicine has become a global phenomenon."
The summit will explore ways to scale up scientific advances and realise the potential of evidence-based knowledge in the use of traditional medicine for people’s health and well-being around the world.
Heads of state and government at the 2019 UN high-level meeting on universal health coverage acknowledged the need to include evidence-based traditional and complementary medicine services, particularly in primary health care, a cornerstone of health systems, in pursuit of health for all.
Rosemary Mburu, the executive director of the health advocacy group WACI Health, also recently urged Kenya to embrace traditional medicine in its UHC plan to fight malaria.
“Considering the grave problems of increasing levels of both insecticide and drug resistance with regards to the mosquito and malaria parasite, coupled with difficulties in rural and marginalised areas in terms of affordability and access to effective antimalarial drugs, the innovative use of regulated and modernised traditional medicine is critical,” she said.
“This pathway could be an important and sustainable source of treatment as part of the broader UHC agenda on ensuring access for all.”
She said African parliamentarians, civil society, and the WHO recently at the African Union parliamentary forum in Johannesburg, agreed to integrate traditional medicine into contemporary health systems across Africa.
“To achieve the ultimate goal of UHC, participants at the AU workshop deliberated how to enhance the potential power of medicinal plants. This is by optimising the use of traditional medicine; how traditional medicine contributes to improving the populations’ health coverage, and how to foster innovation through the adoption of multidisciplinary approaches to combat both human and animal antimicrobial-resistance,” she said.
According to the WHO, traditional and complementary medicine already represents a significant part of the health sector’s economy in many countries.
“Traditional medicine has contributed to breakthrough medical discoveries and continues to hold out great promise,” WHO said in a statement.
“Advancing science on traditional medicine should be held to the same rigorous standards as in other fields of health. This may require new thinking on the methodologies to address these more holistic, contextual approaches and provide evidence that is sufficiently conclusive and robust to lead to policy recommendations,” said Dr John Reeder, WHO director of special programme for research and training in tropical diseases and director of the department of research for health.
