In order to ensure safe use of traditional medicine for treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) has held the first ever summit.
The United Nation health agency disclosed that traditional medicines are a first port of call for millions of people worldwide, therefore, noted that the summit is to bring together policymakers and academics aiming to mobilise political commitment and evidence-based action towards the traditional medicines.
Speaking at the summit, WHO Chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that WHO is working to build the evidence and data to inform policies, standards and regulations for the safe, cost-effective and equitable use of traditional medicine.
He said that traditional medicine could bridge healthcare access gaps if it is used appropriately, effectively, and safely based on the latest scientific evidence.
The two-day WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit takes place alongside a meeting of G20 health ministers in the Indian city of Gandhinagar.
According to the WHO Chief, “We need to face a very important real-life fact that traditional medicines are very widely used,” Nobel laureate and chair of the WHO Science Council Harold Varmus told the summit via video link.
“It is important to understand what ingredients are actually in traditional medicines, why they work in some cases… and importantly, we need to understand and identify which traditional medicines don’t work”.
The summit, set to become a regular event, follows the opening last year of a WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine, also in India’s Gujarat state.
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