I’m glad to be here in the state and the country of Gandhi, the pride not only of India, but also the pride of the world.
Your Excellency Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
Your Excellency Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth,
Your Excellency Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel,
Your Excellency Minister Sarbananda Sonowal,
And my sister, Regional Director of the World Health Organization, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh,
Honourable Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
I am happy to be here. And it is an honour to join you all today.
His Excellency Prime Minister Modi tells us that “the world is one family”, and that the knowledge of health inherited by one society should benefit all people.
This is the basis upon which we established the first and only WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in Jamnagar, Gujarat, which the Prime Minister and I, and the Prime Minister of Mauritius had the honour of launching yesterday. For me it is very historic, and I know that in traditional medicine it will be a game changer.
The centre is designed to be an engine of innovation to drive the agenda for evidence, data, and sustainability in traditional medicine.
The new global centre will connect with traditional medicine practitioners from all over the world and help set standards for research and evidence-informed policies to improve health, as His Excellency Prime Minister Modi said yesterday.
The new Centre will complement WHO’s work on traditional medicine in headquarters, regional and country offices.
It will focus on evidence, data, sustainability and innovation to support national policies and optimise the use of traditional medicine for health and wellbeing.
I commend Prime Minister Modi and the Indian Government for their commitment to harness the power of innovation in public health.
I was able to witness this first-hand yesterday, with my visit to the All India Institute of Ayurveda in Delhi. I heard about Holistic Ayurveda and Panchakarma treatment in the Ayurveda Paediatric Department, as well as holistic traditional recipes and therapeutic diets.
It is easy to see the great potential that traditional medicine has if it can be given attention globally.
I also learned that the hospital data is managed with an Integrated Hospital Management System, which is an encouraging sign of using technology to marry traditional medicine with modern methods.
Traditional and modern, side by side, the center being saving the patient. So, it is patient-centred, or person-centred.
It is heartening to see the efforts of the Ayush Ministry to foster this spirit of collecting data for research in the traditional medicine community.
India’s public health leadership was already demonstrated by the launch of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Health Innovations, which was launched on World Health Day 2022, at the Kalam Institute of Health Technology in Vizakhapatnam.
It is appropriate that nations who are rich in the knowledge, practice and inheritance of traditional medicine invest in a nurturing environment to encourage research and the collection of high-quality evidence.
The Ayush sector is also growing significantly – by 17% per year since 2014. In fact, the Ayush industry is projected to reach US$ 23 billion by the end of this year.
It is easy to see why this fast-moving industry – which spans so many areas – dietary, wellbeing, and pharmaceutical, just to name a few - is attracting an array of investment interest, from entrepreneurs to tech companies, and healthcare centres and large manufacturers.
As I remarked yesterday, through the Ayush sector, India will go to the whole world, and the whole world will come to India.
The history of traditional medicines’ usage in our modern society is profound, with medicines derived from natural and herbal products being used for the treatment of diabetes, hypertension, malaria and many other maladies.
Even aspirin is derived from natural sources.
And yoga, for instance, has been associated with improvement in cardiovascular risk factors, and may be helpful for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.
The WHO mYoga application helps to connect the dots: the need for physical activity, the benefits of Yoga, and the use of mobile app-based technology to make it more accessible to the public.
I am also aware that some scientists are looking at how traditional medicine may help bring new perspectives to modern science, and can even lead to new scientific discoveries.
More study is needed, including with clinical trials, to help bring the benefits of traditional and complimentary medicine into wider use, as appropriate, in health systems.
The inclusion of traditional medicine in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases by WHO will help to establish reliable data on the use of traditional medicine.
We are exploring innovative study designs and the use of artificial intelligence to document the impact of traditional medicine practices, in cases when standard randomized trials are not possible or are difficult to undertake.
For traditional medicine, innovation should also mean a process of adaptation and evolution.
WHO places great value on strategies to promote health and prevent disease, something that traditional medical practices also emphasize.
Traditional medicine could be considered as a complement to the services offered by people-centred health systems, that balances curative services with rehabilitative and preventive care.
We know that preventing disease not only leads to an improved quality of life for individuals, but is a cost saving to governments in the long run.
We need more attention therefore to our diets, our physical activity as well as our mental and spiritual health.
Strengthening the evidence base of traditional medicine should facilitate its use by communities, to promote better health outcomes, economic benefits and overall impact.
I will leave you with three areas for focus, going forward:
First, long-term, strategic investments, along with government commitment, are needed to support the innovation ecosystem for health in general and traditional medicine in particular.
Second, for innovators, industry, and governments, to develop traditional medicines in a sustainable, environmentally sensitive, and equitable manner;
And third, when bringing traditional medicines to market, we must make sure that the communities that passed on this knowledge and nurtured these traditional products also benefit from their development, including by sharing the fruits of intellectual property.
Let me once again congratulate His Excellency, Prime Minister Modi for his leadership in prioritizing a relatively neglected area of health care. Thank you so much for championing this important initiative, which, along with the Centre, I believe will bring a significant change in the use of traditional medicine.
And I also was very honoured and happy to see Your Excellency Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth held the same position, and I think you have a colleague who can work with you and take this challenge to the highest level possible. We had a meeting and I was so happy to see his commitment, and he has already done a lot in Ayush.
And looking forward to next year, I am happy to say that we have two birthdays coming up: WHO will turn 75, and India will be celebrating its 75th year of independence.
Prime Minister Modi proposed that we jointly hold an annual international meeting on traditional medicine in Gujarat. So, for traditional medicine, Gujarat will be a pilgrimage center, and that’s what we see, to which I agreed. It’s a very important idea. People working on this should meet on a regular basis.
The first meeting will be next year, and it will be a great way to commemorate our anniversaries. Two 75s, India and WHO. Next year will be the beginning, but it will be sustained, and that’s what I believe.
I will close my speech today with this thought: by working together to make the most of traditional knowledge from our communities, we can help to make the world a healthier, more sustainable, and fairer place.
I thank you. Namaste.