The World Health Organisation has convened the first high-level global summit on traditional medicine to explore evidence base and opportunities to accelerate health for all.
The summit which will be held on August 17 and 18 in India, will explore the role of traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine in addressing pressing health challenges and driving progress in global health and sustainable development.
The summit participants will include the WHO Director General and Regional Directors, G20 health ministers and high-level invitees from countries across WHO’s six regions.
“Scientists, practitioners of traditional medicine, health workers and members of the civil society organisations will also take part,” WHO said in a statement.
The summit seeks to chart a roadmap to scale up scientific advances in traditional medicine systems and practices.
This will include research, evidence and learning, policy, data and regulation, clinical practice, innovation and digital health, biodiversity and conservation and equitable sharing of benefits.
For decades, little attention was paid to traditional medicine. However, the State last year revealed plans to integrate traditional medicine into the country’s healthcare system.
That means herbalists can be regulated and their medicine studied and standardised.
Kenyans can also have access to rich traditional knowledge as well as modern medicine. In some cases the two can be integrated and complement each other.
Four years ago, more than 30 illegal herbal outlets were shut in Nairobi following a raid.
During the 2019 raid, cartons of concoctions were seized by the officials and owners of the outlets arrested.
“Traditional medicine can play an important and catalytic role in achieving UHC and meeting global health-related targets that were off-track even before the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” WHO DG Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“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 emerged that desperate Kenyans are the most vulnerable to some unscrupulous herbalists, who lie to people they can cure diseases within weeks.
Sale of herbal medicine in Kenya is not regulated and some dealers openly displaying their wares on the street, some hawk them in public service vehicles.
Sexual enhancement drugs and those used to improve the body’s immunity are the most popular.
Due to insufficient regulation, issues such as optimal production conditions, optimal dosage, storage and for which ailments the medicine can be used have not been addressed.
