On Thursday, the World Health Organization began its first summit on traditional medicine, stating that its goal was to gather information and proof to permit the use of such treatments in a safe manner.
The UN health agency said that traditional medicines represent a “first port of call for millions of people globally,” and that the discussions in India, which brought together policymakers and academics, aimed to “mobilise political commitment and evidence-based action” toward them.
WHO Director Tedros Ghebreyesus stated in his opening remarks at the summit that his organization is working to provide the facts and data to drive policies, standards, and regulations for the safe, economical, and equitable use of traditional medicine.
When utilized “appropriately, effectively, and above all, safely based on the latest scientific data,” Tedros earlier cautioned, traditional medicine could help close healthcare “access gaps.”
In the Indian city of Gandhinagar, the G20 health ministers’ meeting coincides with the two-day WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit.
Nobel laureate and head of the WHO Science Council Harold Varmus addressed the conference via video link, saying, “We need to recognize a very significant real-life fact that traditional medicines are used very widely.”
Understanding the real components of conventional medicines and the reasons why they function in particular situations is crucial. Additionally, it’s critical that we comprehend and pinpoint which conventional treatments fail.
The summit, which is expected to become a yearly occurrence, comes on the heels of the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine’s debut in Gujarat, India, last year.
Regulatory oversight is lacking
Despite being widely utilized in various regions of the world, traditional medicines are sometimes subject to harsh criticism.
Traditional medicine is described by the UN agency for health as the knowledge, abilities, and procedures utilized over time to preserve health and to prevent, identify, and treat physical and mental illness.
Conservationists claim the sector fuels a rife traffic in threatened animals, including as tigers, rhinos, and pangolins, and threatens the extinction of entire species. However, many traditional remedies lack any scientific basis for their use.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the use of home remedies increased dramatically. One such remedy was a green herbal beverage based on Artemisia that the president of Madagascar marketed as a treatment.
Although the herb has been shown to be effective in treating malaria, many doctors have been highly critical of its usage in treating covid.
Traditional Chinese medicine has an illustrious history in China, but prestigious European medical organizations have in the past advocated that it be subject to the same regulatory scrutiny as modern medical practices.
WHO research chief John Reeder stated in a statement that “traditional medicine’s advancement of science should be held to the same rigorous standards as in other disciplines of health.”
Only 124 of the WHO’s 194 member nations reported having laws or regulations governing the use of herbal medicines, and only half had a national policy on these practices and medications, despite the fact that 170 of those governments had acknowledged using traditional and complementary medicine as of 2018, according to the WHO.
According to the WHO, “natural does not always imply safe, and centuries of use do not imply efficacy; thus, scientific technique and methodology must be employed to give the rigorous proof required.”
The WHO cites “landmark medications” that come from conventional medicine, such aspirin, which uses formulations based on willow tree bark, as having a “natural product basis” for about 40% of currently used approved pharmaceutical goods.
