New Global Centre For Traditional Medicine Could Be A Game-changer: WHO's Poonam Khetrapal

In April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Dr Teros Ghebreyesus inaugurated the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Centre for Traditional Medicine (GCTM) in Jamnagar, Gujarat. 

Modi promised USD 250 million for the institute’s establishment, infrastructure and operations. The entire world is keeping an eye as the central government could be a game-changer by focusing on strengthening the evidence base for traditional medicine. 

In a bid to get more insight about the GCTM and current Covid-19 situation, BW Businessworld spoke to Poonam Khetrapal, WHO Regional Direction, South East Asia. 

Khetrapal explained the importance of traditional medicines and WHO's plan to partner with the Ayush Ministry and the union government to build a global centre for traditional medicine. Edited excerpts:

How will the establishment of the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in India help us?

More than 80 per cent of people globally use traditional medicine and practices and for many people, traditional medicine is the first port of call. In India, traditional medicine and practices have been in use since ancient times and are strongly embedded in the culture and daily lives.

From across the world and in India there are numerous examples of traditional medicines being turned into modern medicines with such products as turmeric, neem and jamun. Yet more work needs to be done when it comes to identifying, developing, and testing these products and to integrate traditional medicine into the mainstream healthcare delivery system.

WHO’s new Global Centre for Traditional Medicine could be a game-changer by focusing on strengthening the evidence base for traditional medicine, gathering evidence and data to inform policies, standards and regulatory frameworks, ensuring sustainability and equity and, innovation and technology to maximize the role of traditional medicine in global health and sustainable development.

What is the importance of traditional medicines in the healthcare system?

Traditional medicine and practices are in use in over 170 of 194 WHO member countries and play a vital role in the health and wellbeing of people. Over 40 per cent of pharmaceutical formulations are based on natural products and many contemporary drugs trace their origins to traditional medicine.  Traditional medicine is a part of the growing trillion-dollar global health, wellness, beauty, and pharmaceutical industries due to its unique and holistic approach to health. Traditional medicine will also complement the modern system of medicine to prevent and control NCDs and mental health.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has further impacted health systems across the world and all countries need to mobilise all available resources including traditional medicines to recover from the pandemic, fill gaps in health coverage and accelerate progress toward health goals of sustainable development goals. 

As Regional Director of the World Health Organisation South-East Asia Region, what will be your three priorities to advance progress in ending Covid-19? 

We can and must end the acute phase of the pandemic this year.  Countries must step up vaccine coverage with a focus on at-risk groups including frontline medical workers, elders and those who are immunocompromised. WHO has asked countries to vaccinate 70 per cent of their populations by the mid of this year. The WHO South-East Asia Region has made commendable strides in vaccinating people against Covid-19. All 10 countries in the WHO South-East Asia Region have already achieved the milestone of vaccinating 40 per cent of their populations with primary series of Covid-19 vaccines. Three countries have achieved the target of 70 per cent coverage with primary series and we must accelerate our efforts to expand coverage.

Second, we must continue to enhance surveillance, strengthen laboratories and gather public health intelligence to track the virus and see how it is evolving and spreading to tailor our responses and measures. Thirdly, we must strengthen our clinical care for Covid-19 and resilient health care systems. Fourth, we must continue research and development and ensure equitable access to tools and supplies. Fifth, ensure coordination as the response transitions from an emergency mode to long-term respiratory disease management.  

Together, all of us must take steps to prevent the virus from spreading further. This means proper wearing of masks, ensuring hand hygiene, keeping a safe distance and getting vaccinated when our turn comes.

Coronavirus has started spreading again, where are we going wrong?

The fact is that the virus never stopped transmitting. While globally the number of new Covid-19 cases and deaths has continued to decline since the end of March 2022, this does not mean the pandemic is over. During the week of 11 to 17 April, there were over 5 million cases and over 18 000 deaths reported worldwide. The decline in numbers should also be interpreted with caution as several countries are progressively changing their testing strategies resulting in fewer tests conducted and a lower number of cases detected.  

We know that the Omicron variant spreads more easily than earlier variants of the virus that cause Covid-19 and remains the dominant variant circulating globally. The fact that it appears to be milder than previous variants may have caused a shift in the perception of risk by countries and people. 

This is not the time to lower our guard. Protective behaviours remain critical. These include keeping a safe distance from others, avoiding crowds, wearing a well-fitted mask covering your mask and nose, cleaning hands regularly, keeping indoor spaces well ventilated, and covering coughs and sneezes.  

As long as the virus gets a chance to transmit and infect it also gets a chance to mutate and further variants and recombinants are expected to emerge.  Countries need to also rapidly scale up vaccination coverage and strengthen and expand surveillance so we can track the evolution and spread of the virus and calibrate our measures against the virus.  

Are we heading towards the fourth wave?

Whether there is a surge in cases or how intense such a surge depends on all of us. If we all continue to properly wear masks covering our mouth and nose, keep our hands clean, keep a safe distance, try and avoid poorly ventilated areas, and get vaccinated when our turn comes, It will be hard for the virus to transmit and infect more people and cause another wave.

While we do not know and cannot predict the trajectory of the pandemic. The virus continues to evolve and with such intense transmission worldwide, further variants, including recombinants, will emerge. We also know that unvaccinated people are at substantially higher risk of serious disease following infection and It is overwhelmingly unvaccinated people who are experiencing severe disease as a result of Omicron. We need to stop the spread of the virus thereby denying it the chance to evolve, transmit and infect. We must do this while scaling up vaccination, particularly among the most at-risk groups.

Your advice to people on Covid-19?

We can and we must end the pandemic this year. As countries scale up vaccine coverage, we must all work together to reduce the risk, both to ourselves and to others. We must get vaccinated when our turn comes. Follow all the measures such as keeping a safe distance, wearing a well-fitted mask, frequently cleaning our hands, and covering our coughs and sneezes while keeping indoor spaces well ventilated.

We are in the third year of the pandemic now and understandably we are all exhausted and want to get back to the life we had before the pandemic. For this to happen, we must stay the course, and follow these measures, to reduce the amount of disease, suffering and death, and get the world back to normal.