Mrs Suzanne Camelia Romer, Hon’ble Minister of Health of Curacao; Mr Alexander Kodwo Kom Abban, Hon’ble Deputy Minister of Health of Ghana; Distinguished Representatives from Embassies; participants from across the world; Mr Sanjeeva Kumar, Special Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India; Mr Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India; Mr P.N Ranjit Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India; Dr Manoj Nesari, Advisor, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India; Dr Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative to India; distinguished participants from academia and civil society; Officials from the Ministry of AYUSH; colleagues from WHO.
A very good morning. It is a privilege to participate in this conference, which I am certain will help standardize knowledge and practice in this very important area.
Traditional and complementary medicine plays an active role in the lives of individuals, communities and cultures across the South-East Asia Region, as across the world.
It is an area of knowledge and practice that for many people is embedded in their day-to-day lives.
Importantly, traditional and complementary medicine often encourages people to engage with health systems that would otherwise be unfamiliar.
We must welcome this initiative as together we strive to achieve universal health coverage – one of the Region’s eight Flagship Priorities, and the target that underpins Sustainable Development Goal 3, the health goal.
I commend the Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, for organizing this conference, which is yet another demonstration of India’s commitment to our common goals.
Excellencies, participants,
For many years Member States in the Region have sought to leverage the power of traditional medicine. All 11 of the Region’s Member States have national policies on traditional medicine. Nine have formal training and education systems for traditional medicine practitioners. Six have co-located traditional medicine services in their health systems at some or all levels.
Over the past two decades, the use of traditional and complementary medicine has expanded globally, gaining significant popularity, including in developed countries. One reason for this is the dramatic increase in the number of people with noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and mental disorders. Traditional medicine has great potential to promote health and to prevent and manage NCDs – an issue of great concern in our Region, and another of our Flagship Priorities.
In 2017 WHO published a set of standardized core and reference indicators, which policymakers in the Region have used to develop or revise national policies and to review programmes.
Between 2016 and 2020 WHO and the Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, collaborated on a project on the promotion of quality, safe and effective traditional and complementary medicine.
In 2018, after conducting several in-depth country reviews, WHO conducted a regional baseline survey on pharmacovigilance for traditional medicine products.
Your efforts to standardize diagnosis and terminologies will build on this momentum and help harness the power of traditional and complementary medicine to achieve our goal: universal health coverage.
Moving forward, there are several areas where together we must focus.
First, we must continue to strengthen standard monitoring and evaluation. The standard indicators that we developed through several expert consultations are an outstanding resource, but only if they are applied. I urge all countries to do so. The same goes for our monitoring indicators, which are based on the six health system building blocks. The indicators allow us to assess overall performance within each country, as well as across countries. This gives countries a better idea of what’s going right, what’s potentially going wrong, and how they can learn from one another.
Second, we must continue to prioritize pharmacovigilance. The baseline surveys and best practices identified last year are of great value, and I thank you for your input. They will be especially useful at a regional workshop later this year, where all Member States will plan and thereafter work to establish a safety monitoring system for traditional and complementary medicine products. These systems will ensure all adverse events are identified early, giving health authorities the chance to respond rapidly and efficiently. It is imperative that countries across the Region share information on adverse events to limit the impact they can have.
Third, research capacity. Quality research on traditional and complementary medicine is crucial to assessing its effectiveness. To help Member States carry out such research, last year WHO held a regional workshop on clinical research methodologies, which was a great success. Based on Member State recommendations, WHO is now working with the Central Council for Research in Ayurveda, under the Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, to develop common regional guidelines for research in traditional medicine. I look forward to the finalization and Region-wide rollout of the new guidelines.
Excellencies, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen,
The three strategic objectives of WHO’s global Traditional and Complementary Medicine Strategy are clear: We must build our knowledge base; strengthen quality assurance, safety and effectiveness; and promote universal health coverage.
This conference will help us deliver on all three.
Notably, it will also facilitate the digitization of traditional medicine knowledge and policy – an important outcome in light of the draft Global Strategy on Digital Health, which WHO’s Executive Board considered earlier this year, and which will now be presented to the World Health Assembly in May.
Our time together is indeed valuable, and we must take full advantage of it.
I urge all stakeholders – both in the Region and beyond – to do that, and to ensure traditional and complementary medicine delivers on its promise of advancing health and well-being as part of a comprehensive approach to universal health coverage.
I wish the conference all success and reiterate WHO’s full support to your efforts as together we strive to achieve health and well-being for all people at all ages.
Thank you.