Integrate Traditional Medicine in healthcare system: Ramadoss

New Delhi, Nov 16 (UNI) Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss today called for integrating traditional and modern systems of medicine to provide a comprehensive health care system and sought cooperation among countries in the field of traditional medicine.

Inaugurating a two-day International Conclave on Traditional Medicine here, the minister said that to shut out traditional medicine products on'' arbitrary technical barriers'' in the name of safety would be against the interest of both patients and consumers.

He called on the countries participating in the Conclave to evolve safe and efficacious traditional medicine products and build up an evidence base for the system.

''In the global society today, a significant segment of population in most of the developed nations have used traditional medicine products for generations. Hence erecting artificial non-tariff technical barriers to trade of Traditional Medicine products could infringe on their right to have products of their choice,'' Dr Ramadoss said.

The Minister said that India has a strong base of traditional medicine in the form of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Yoga. It has a National Policy on AYUSH, which seeks to promote good health and out reach of health care to the people through preventive, promotive and curative AYUSH interventions, greater availability of authentic raw drugs and to integrate AYUSH in health care system. Mainstreaming of AYUSH is the key strategy under the National Rural Health Mission.

India has a proper administrative set up to look after the regulation and development of Indian Systems of Medicines and Homoeopathy, in terms of Regulatory Bodies for education and practice of these systems, Drug&Cosmetics Act and Rules for regulation of traditional medicine products, he pointed out.

Dr Ramadoss said that an exclusive plenary Session has been scheduled on the second day of the Conclave to discuss the issues relating to legal and policy framework on Traditional Knowledge Protection in which a detailed presentation will made on the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) created by India.

The Digital Library is aimed to provide protection to more than 1,00,000 traditional medicine formulations described in Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani classical texts from mis appropriation by issue of wrong patents based on traditional medicine knowledge which is already in public domain, he said.

The Minister said that the conclave would be fruitful and lead to the development of strategy guidelines and a roadmap for strengthening and mainstreaming of these systems in the national health care system. Since traditional medicine adopts a holistic approach and seeks to restore a patient to a healthy status by a combination of natural health products, dietary and exercise regime, its integration would make the national healthcare system more comprehensive, he said.

More UNI AJ VD HT1635