India enters into bilateral collaboration with five countries to conduct research in traditional medicines and study best practices

‘The focus is to bring in and provide quality education, access to best practices and research and development partnerships for global good,’ says Union Minister of Ayush Sarbananda Sonowal.

Union Minister of Ayush Sarbananda Sonowal | Photo Credit: Kamal Narang

In an effort to expand the scope and work of Indian Systems of Traditional Medicine, India has entered into a bilateral collaboration with five countries — Nepal, Cuba, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Qatar — to share best practices and benefit from the work going on here in this field.

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“These bilateral meetings have provided an opportunity for renewing of ties, and exploring various initiatives for research, practices, education, and training in the field of Ayurveda and other Traditional Medicine system,’’ said Union Minister of Ayush Sarbananda Sonowal on Monday.

 “The focus is to bring in and provide quality education, access to best practices and research and development partnerships for global good,’’ explained the Minister.

‘Gujarat Declaration on Traditional Medicine soon’

Meanwhile, speaking about the first World Health Organisation-Traditional Medicine Global Summit which concluded on August 18 in Gandhinagar he said that this Ministry of Ayush co-hosted initiative would soon see the release of a Gujarat Declaration on Traditional Medicine.

“The declaration will be released soon by WHO and it emphasises the importance of traditional medicine being recognised for attainment of Universal Health Coverage and WHO’s commitment to work toward it through evidence generation and policy support to member-states,’’ he said.

The Ministry in its release added that the summit has been able to elicit strong commitment from the diverse and unique groups of partners and stakeholders to harness the potential of the evidence-based Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine.

“The summit will contribute to charting out the future course of action of WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine. Its outcomes will contribute significantly to the formation of ‘WHO TM Strategy 2025-34’ document,’’ noted the release.

It added that a digital exhibition was also organised by WHO and Ministry of Ayush during the summit where all the six regions of WHO showcased their work in traditional medicine and a separate exhibition zone was created by the Ministry of Ayush for showing its efficacy and programmes.