WHO to set up regulatory platform for Ayurveda practitioners: Official

Goa Khabar: The World Health Organisation is mulling to set up a multi country regulatory cooperation platform for traditional medicine practitioners, which will accelerate the global acceptance,  and accessibility of Ayurveda within a period of 10 to 15 years of time, WHO official said here today.  

“Prevention, early detection and rehabilitation to improve healthy life expectancy are among our priorities in future. Based on these, we have to understand how to utilise the nearly 500,000 registered practitioners of Ayurveda globally, to achieve these goals,” said Dr Geetha Krishnan, Technical Officer, Traditional Medicine, WHO, Geneva.  

Dr Krishnan was speaking at a session on ‘Expanding Scope of Ayurveda’ at the 9^th edition of the World Ayurveda Congress (WAC) & Arogya Expo 2022 that began at Campal Grounds here on Thursday. The four-day conclave is being organised by World Ayurveda Foundation, an initiative of Vijnana Bharati, with the support of the Ministry of Ayush and Govt. of Goa.

Elaborating the activities of WHO to promote Ayurveda, he said the UN body has come out with training modules for Ayurveda, benchmarks for regulating its practices and a standardised terminology document that would help Ayurveda practitioners to interact with modern medicine in an easier manner.

“The WHO’s global centre of traditional medicine will work with several governments to bring out more evidence-based Ayurveda, to the globe. WHO is half-way through in the work to include Ayurveda in the international classification of diseases,” he informed.

Dr Krishnan said WHO considers Ayurveda to be useful in several ways that will allow it to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Noting that Ayurveda is a cost-effective healthcare system for individuals and community, he said Ayurvedic concepts can be totally utilised for achieving the SDGs if these are considered under the perspective of products, practices and practitioners.

Commenting on the global status of Ayurveda, Dr Krishnan said that rough eariamtes suggest that it’s global market is $30 billion in 2022 and about 93 Member States (MS) of WHO acknowledge the use of Ayurveda in their society. Further, 16 MS regulate Ayurveda practice and five MS support insurance coverage for Ayurveda.   

Dr Krishnan also stressed the importance of creating a methodology to utilise and improve access to a safe, effective, quality and affordable healthcare.  “The scope of Ayurveda lies in the domains of psychological, physical, spiritual, and social dimensions of life,” he noted

Prof Bhushan Patwardhan, National Research Professor-AYUSH and Former Vice Chairman, UGC, called for looking at Ayurveda as a source of innovation as there is a huge potential for new ideas to crop up from Ayurveda.

Dr Bala Pesala, of IIT Jodhpur, said it is time to coalesce Ayurveda and modern science effectively. 

Dr Ram Manohar, Director, Amrita Centre for Advanced Research in Ayurveda (ACARA), Amritapuri, was the moderator.