Challenges in the regulation of traditional medicine – a review of global scenario

Summary of article contents:

Traditional medical knowledge and practices are widely prevalent around the world since centuries. With rapidly increasing use of traditional medicine and complementary/alternative medicine (TM/CAM) throughout the world its safety, efficacy and quality became major challenge and has made their regulation an urgent need. The effort to regulate TM is a priority of all governments, which got greater impetus since WHO Declaration of Alma-Ata in 1978. Though there are various guidelines and international consensus, countries face difficulty in the development and implementation of the regulation due to its diversity and complexity.
Some literatures are available on global initiatives for regulation of TM and the challenges they are reviewed in this paper with appropriate references. For the compilation and review of information, hand-searching of books, journals, reports on traditional medicine and policy documents were done. Google, Pub Med and Medline online searches were also carried out to access other relevant publications. The key words used to access online materials mainly included traditional medicine, complementary/alternative medicine, folk medicine, traditional healer, herbal medicine, health policy, economic policy, intellectual property rights.