A San traditional healer sits in the open in the southern Kalahari at Witdraai, South Africa.

Washington — Some systems of traditional medicine may be thousands of years old, but few have developed the powerful methods for proving safety and effectiveness that modern medicine has established over several centuries.

Well-known examples of traditional medicine are acupuncture in China, ayurvedic medicine in India and herbalism or botanical medicine, an important part of many traditional medical practices.

“The two systems of traditional and Western medicine need not clash,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said November 7, addressing more than 1,200 participants from 74 countries during the first WHO Congress on Traditional Medicine, held November 7-9 in Beijing.

“Within the context of primary health care,” Chan said, “[the systems] can blend together in a beneficial harmony, using the best features of each system and compensating for certain weaknesses in each. This is not something that will happen all by itself. Deliberate policy decisions have to be made. But it can be done successfully.”

Countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America use traditional medicine to meet some primary health care needs. In Africa, up to 80 percent of people use traditional medicine for primary health care. Such practices are also growing in industrialized countries, where adaptations of traditional medicine are called complementary and alternative medicine.

BEIJING DECLARATION

During the meeting — organized by WHO and co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Health and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine — national officials, representatives of the 19 WHO collaborating centers for traditional medicine, nongovernmental organizations and key partners discussed and adopted the Beijing Declaration on Promotion and Development of Traditional Medicine.

The declaration included the following recommendations:

• Knowledge of traditional medicine, treatments and practices should be respected and preserved.

• Governments should formulate regulations and standards as part of their national health systems to ensure the safe use of traditional medicine.

• Governments should establish systems to accredit or license traditional medicine practitioners.

• Traditional medicine should be developed based on research and innovation in line with the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property adopted at the 61st World Health Assembly in 2008.

“This year marks WHO's 60th anniversary and the 30th anniversary of the Alma-Ata Declaration, adopted by WHO and UNICEF in 1978,” Dr. Zhang Xiaorui, an organizer of the meeting and coordinator of traditional medicines at WHO's Department of Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies, told America.gov in an e-mail communication.

An Indian girl looks for information in a book on ayurveda, the ancient Hindu science of health and medicine, in New Delhi.

“The Alma-Ata Declaration is significant for traditional medicine,” she said. “Although traditional medicine has been used for thousands of years and the associated practitioners have made great contributions to human health, the Alma-Ata Declaration was the first recognition of the role of traditional medicine and its practitioners in primary health care by WHO and its member states.”

SAFE PRACTICES

Traditional medicine is generally accessible, affordable and commonly used in large parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. For millions of people, especially those living in rural areas of developing countries, herbal medicines and treatments delivered by traditional practitioners are sometimes the only form of health care available.

In China, traditional herbal preparations account for 30 percent to 50 percent of total medicinal consumption. In Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Zambia, the first line of treatment for 60 percent of children with high fever from malaria is home use of herbal medicines.

In San Francisco, London and South Africa, 75 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS use traditional medicine.

In Maryland, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health, is one of WHO’s collaborating centers for traditional medicine.

Its mission is to use rigorous science to explore complementary and alternative healing practices, train complementary and alternative medicine researchers and disseminate information to medical professionals and to the public.

“We here at NCCAM would say that our job is to do good research on complementary and alternative medicine,” NCCAM Deputy Director Dr. Jack Killen told America.gov, “and that practices found to be safe and effective should become a part of and available to health care, wherever they come from.”

According to WHO, acupuncture has been proven effective in relieving postoperative pain, nausea during pregnancy, nausea and vomiting resulting from chemotherapy, and dental pain — with extremely low side effects. It can also alleviate anxiety, panic disorders and insomnia.

Since 1997, NCCAM has funded extensive research to advance scientific understanding of acupuncture. Some recent NCCAM-supported studies have examined whether acupuncture works for specific health conditions such as chronic low-back pain, headache and osteoarthritis of the knee; how acupuncture might work, such as what happens in the brain during acupuncture treatment; ways to better identify and understand the potential neurological properties of meridians and acupuncture points; and methods and instruments for improving the quality of acupuncture research.

According to WHO, yoga can reduce asthma attacks, tai chi techniques can help older people reduce their fear of falls, and traditional medicine can affect infectious diseases.

For example, the Chinese herbal remedy Artemisia annua, used in China for nearly 2,000 years, is effective against drug-resistant malaria and could create a breakthrough in preventing almost 1 million deaths annually — most of them children — from severe malaria, according to WHO.

Traditional treatments are historical assets that have become more relevant given the globalization of unhealthy lifestyles, rapid unplanned urbanization and demographic aging, Chan said. Global consequences for health are seen in the rise worldwide of chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

“For these diseases and many other conditions,” she added, “traditional medicine has much to offer in terms of prevention, comfort, compassion and care.”

More information is available at the WHO Traditional Medicine Web site and that of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.