Three-day conference ends with vows to improve Eastern medicine

Doctors recommend traditional medicine to treat drug addictions.

KARACHI: On the last day of the Hamdard Unani Medical Conference, experts vowed to take the field of Eastern medicine forward.

The representatives of the manufacturers of herbal medicine, international and local associations of Eastern medicine recommended on Thursday the government add their suggestions to the National Health Policy.

“It is the time to utilise the huge potential of scientifically developed Unani medical system,” said Prof. Dr Aftab Saeed, the director of Hamdard Research Institute of Unani Medicine at Hamdard University. “With the development of modern diagnosis facilities, the importance and need of traditional medicines are increasing globally.”

The experts agreed that traditional medicines have proven to be low-cost and highly effective for the lower-income groups of our society. Government should help create and support education and use of traditional medicines on a priority basis, they decided.



It should also support research and development at university-level in order to introduce therapies at large  scale. The faculty of Eastern Medicine at Hamdard University should be declared as the World Health Organisation Centre for Collaborative Research on Traditional Medicine and Shifaul Mulk Memorial Hospital should be added as the Centre of Excellence for Primary Health Care. Laying down the recommendations, the vice president of the Pakistan Association of Eastern Medicine, Hakim Rathat Naseem, said they want to integrate traditional medicine into regular healthcare systems.

The researchers said that traditional medicine and therapies can be used against complex situations, such as preventable diseases, immunisation and rehabilitation from drug addition. “It has been tested and researched in Singapore with outstanding results against drug addition,” pointed out Dr Mumtazuddin Ahmed, a professor of anatomy at Mahsa Collage, Malaysia. “As Pakistan is facing the challenges of drug addition, traditional medicine can provide low-cost remedies.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2013.