South East Asian countries also look for ways to integrate traditional medicines into national healthcare systems to achieve universal health coverage
The Indian government has decided to revive the country’s traditional systems of medicine—Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH)—to address gaps in the existing health services. They hope that revival of the systems of medicine will provide services in vulnerable and far-flung areas of the country.
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, gave its approval for launching the National AYUSH Mission yesterday. The Mission would ensure that special focus is given to specific needs of such vulnerable areas through allocation of higher resources. The Mission would also focus on education on AYUSH, increasing the number of AYUSH hospitals and dispensaries, availability of drugs and manpower and providing sustained availability of quality raw material for medicine and improving the availability of quality drugs. http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=109695
India has a rich history of using traditional systems of medicine, both to treat diseases and to prevent them. But the practice now faces problems ranging from lack of raw material to make the drugs to loss of traditional knowledge. These medicines cost less and do not have side effects.
This announcement comes at a time when health ministers and policy makers from the 11 member states of the WHO South-East Asia Region too are looking for ways to integrate traditional medicines into national healthcare systems. They feel that this will help them achieve universal health coverage. At the Sixty-seventh Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the group reviewed the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014-2023 which has a three-pronged objective: to build a knowledge base and formulate national policies; to strengthen the safety, quality and effectiveness of traditional medicines through regulation; and to support Universal Health Coverage through appropriate integration of traditional medicine services and self-health care into national health-care systems. In February 2013, the International Conference on traditional medicine was organised in New Delhi and the Delhi Declaration on Traditional Medicine for South-East Asia was adopted unanimously by the Member States. http://www.searo.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2014/pr1584/en/
Question raised in Rajya Sabha on quality assessment of AYUSH facilities, 22/07/2014
The quest for evidence-based Ayurveda: lessons learned
Traditional knowledge system (medicine): a case study of Arakalgud taluk, Karnataka, India
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