Traditional Medicine in Global Health
How traditional healing practices are integrated into health systems, the controversy over regulation, and what the WHO's approach means for global health equity.
Tradition and Modernity
Approximately 80 percent of people in some Asian and African countries use traditional medicine as their primary form of health care. Traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, African traditional medicine, and indigenous healing practices represent accumulated knowledge developed over centuries. The WHO has increasingly recognized the importance of traditional medicine, establishing a Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in India in 2022 and including a chapter on traditional medicine in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) for the first time.
Many modern drugs have origins in traditional medicine. Artemisinin, the most effective antimalarial compound, was derived from a traditional Chinese medicine herb by Tu Youyou, who won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for the discovery. Aspirin is derived from willow bark, used medicinally for millennia. These examples demonstrate that traditional knowledge can yield valuable biomedical discoveries when subjected to rigorous scientific investigation.
