WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine

• 10 Mar 2022

The Union Cabinet recently approved the establishment of the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine (WHO GCTM) in Jamnagar, Gujarat by signing a Host Country agreement between the Government of India and the World Health Organization (WHO).

• The WHO GCTM will be established under the Ministry of AYUSH.This would be the first and only global outposted Centre (office) for traditional medicine across the globe.

Objectives

• To position AYUSH systems across the globe;
• To provide leadership on global health matters pertaining to traditional medicine;
• To ensure quality, safety and efficacy, accessibility and rational use of traditional medicine;
• To develop norms, standards, and guidelines in relevant technical areas, tools and methodologies, for collecting data undertaking analytics, and assess impact; and
• To develop specific capacity building and training programmes in the areas of relevance to the objectives and conduct training programmes in campus, residential, or web-based, and through partnerships with the WHO Academy and other strategic partners.

Joint Task Force (JTF)

• A Joint Task Force (JTF) is constituted for coordination, execution and monitoring of activities for the establishment of this Centre.Under the ambit of this, an interim office is being established at the ITRA, Jamnagar, Gujarat to execute the identified technical activities and planning of fully functional WHO GCTM.

Interim Office

• The interim office is intended to deliver broadly on generation of evidence and innovation, artificial intelligence based solutions for traditional medicine, systematic reviews in collaboration with Cochrane, Global survey on traditional medicine data across WHO GPW 13 (Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019-2023) and sustainable development goals, traditional medicine socio-cultural and biodiversity heritage with a forward looking approach to sustainable development and management and cross-cutting functions, business operations and administrative processes for the establishment of main office of WHO GCTM.

Significance

• WHO-GCTM will identify various challenges faced by countries in regulating, integrating and further positioning traditional medicine.
• WHO- GCTM and various other initiatives in collaboration with WHO will aid India in positioning traditional medicine across the globe.
• It would provide leadership on all global health matters related to traditional medicine as well as extend support to member countries in shaping various policies related to traditional medicine research, practices and public health.