The Department of Ayush, in collaboration with WHO-SEARO, will organise an international conference on traditional medicine from February 12 to 14, 2013 at hotel Ashok, Delhi.

The conference will be participated by health ministers of the SEARO region, experts from WHO SEAR (South East Asia Region),WPR (Western Pacific Region) and other countries.

The conference is expected to broaden and update the knowledge on integration, regulation and research priorities in traditional and complementary medicine (TM & CM). It will also enhance cooperation among SEARO countries in the field of traditional medicine.

The objective is to promote the role of TM & CM in healthcare provision in general and Primary Health Care in particular, evaluate the integration of TM & CM into National Health Systems and promotion of their use in Primary Healthcare, share research methodologies for studies on safety, efficacy and quality of TM & CM for PHC in order to identify best practices to ensure the safety, share National policies, programmes and experiences on TM &CM to promote and propagate in SEARO Region, exchange views and share evidence-based information and country experiences on TM & CM, identify priority issues and challenges in strengthening the development and appropriate integration of traditional medicine as part of the National Health system.

India has long history and culture running over 5000 years of using traditional medicines for healthcare. Indian traditional systems of medicines viz. Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Siddha, and Sowa Rigpa are comprehensive scientific systems of medicine evolved in India. Over a period of time, India has developed vast network of infrastructure for its traditional system of medicine and Homoeopathy including five Research Councils, one for each system.

It may be mentioned that traditional medicines are used around the world including South-East Asian countries for healthcare by the people. In recent years there has been global upsurge in the use of traditional medicine because of its availability, accessibility and affordability as against the modern healthcare services which are beyond the reach of people.