Research in traditional medicine needs to be agile and to changing needs: WHO chief scient

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE systems play an important role in promoting well-being and good healthcare and hence research in this area needs to be agile and responsive to the changing needs, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scient, World Health Organisation said on Thursday. She exhorted that it was critical to have collaborations not just between traditional medicine practitioners but also between traditional and modern medicine.
“For example, when I was the Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), we had set up a good relationship with the Ayush Minry to undertake clinical trials for the treatment of dengue. There is a need for multi-institutional research and focus on collaborations with academia and health systems,” Dr Swaminathan said while addressing a symposium on strengthening the research ecosystem for Ayush and Traditional Medicine at the Global Ayush Investment and Innovation summit at Gandhinagar.
The scient further called for the need to incentivise good research and biotech sector and industry to translate into public health interventions “Five pillars that we need to build on our resources, data, collaborations, well-defined methodologies and policy supporting innovation and entrepreneurship,” she urged.
It will be important to think about innovative trial designs for research studies, the scient said and spoke about how acupuncture was an example of how dedicated research can get acceptance for traditional medicine practices.
“Traditional medicines with modern science can pave the way for better healthcare, Dr Bhushan Patwardhan, Ayush lead, WHO-Global Centre for Traditional Medicine, Jamnagar, Gujarat told The Indian Express on the sidelines of the summit.
Dr Patwardhan, who is a national research professor-Ayush, said that the partnership between WHO and the government of India was very important. “At this centre, many countries will come together for a common good so that the new methodology for evidence-based integrated medicine can progress rapidly. We will create a consortium where countries working on various aspects of traditional medicine can come together and innovate. Equity for healthcare is also another focus,” he said.