Ayush Ministry, WHO to organise key meet on traditional medicine on Monday

New Delhi: The Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS) under the Ayush Ministry will organise a national consultative meet on traditional medicine in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

To be organised in the national capital, the meet titled ‘Research Priority Settings in Traditional Medicine’ will be held in collaboration with the WHO-SEARO (World Health Organization-South-East Asia Regional Office) and WHO-GTMC (Global Traditional Medicine Centre).

This marks a pioneering effort in aligning traditional medicine research with global standards and priorities, the Ayush Ministry said.

Key topics to be addressed include medicinal plant research, quality, safety, and efficacy studies, pre-clinical validations, rational use of traditional medicines, clinical trial monitoring, medical anthropology, and the digitalisation of ancient medical literature.

Approximately 100 stakeholders and experts from the Ayush sector are likely to participate in the event, which aims to identify and prioritise key research areas across various traditional medicine systems such as ayurveda, siddha, unani, and homeopathy.

This initiative is in accordance with the WHO mandate in traditional medicine, according to Vaidya Rabinarayan Acharya, Director General, CCRAS.

The meet aims to lay the groundwork for a decade-long research strategy in traditional medicine, fostering the exchange of ideas among the stakeholders and aligning the efforts with WHO guidelines.

Recently, the National Institute of Indian Medical Heritage (NIIMH), a peripheral institute of CCRAS in Hyderabad, was designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for ‘Fundamental and Literary Research in Traditional Medicine’.