WHO holds world’s first traditional medicine summit in India, aims to make it ‘safer’ and ‘science-based’
- Policymakers and academics are aiming to gather evidence to ‘inform policies, standards and regulations for the safe, cost-effective’ use of TM, WHO chief said
- While TM is widely used in parts of the world, it also faces fierce criticism for having no proven scientific value and driving trade in endangered animals
The World Health Organization opened its first summit on traditional medicine on Thursday, with the group saying it was seeking to collect evidence and data to allow for the safe use of such treatments.
Traditional medicines are a “first port of call for millions of people worldwide”, the UN health agency said, with the talks in India bringing together policymakers and academics aiming to “mobilise political commitment and evidence-based action” towards them.
“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”, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as he opened the summit.
Traditional medicine could boost healthcare “access gaps”, but was of value only if used “appropriately, effectively, and above all, safely based on the latest scientific evidence”, Tedros warned earlier.
The two-day WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit takes place alongside a meeting of G20 health ministers in the Indian city of Gandhinagar.
“We need to face a very important real-life fact that traditional medicines are very widely used,” Nobel laureate and Chair of WHO Science Council Harold Varmus told the summit via video link.