World Health Organisation is developing Benchmark Documents for practice in traditional medicine

Total 39 experts, representing 18 countries, 13 experts each from Ayurveda, Panchkarma and Unani would be reviewing the draft document developed by WHO through the consultative process.

The purposes of the meeting are to review, comment and revise as required each of the three zero draft documents prepared by the experts. This is aimed at arriving at an International consensus regarding the structure and content of each of the documents. The documents are expected to provide minimum requirements for qualified practice by practitioners of Ayurveda, Panchkarma and Unani to provide minimum safety requirement for practising these and also to serve as a reference to national authorities to establish/ strengthen regulatory standards to ensure the qualified practice of such system and patients safety.

Dr Sungchol Kim, Regional Advisor, Traditional  Medicine, WHO Welcomed all the Experts and extended his thanks to Ministry of AYUSH for financial and logistic support and stressed about the need of integration of Traditional Medicine System in the conventional medicine system.

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Deputy-Director General, WHO stated that Traditional Medicines are an important integral part of the Universal Health Coverage Program especially under Sustainable Developmental Goal-3 (SDG-3). She informed that Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani Systems have included in 2nd  Traditional Medicine Module of ICD Chapter-11 and Year 2018 is being celebrated as 40th Anniversary Year of Alma Ata Declaration.