TEHRAN- A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the Iranian Health Ministry and the Indian Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), ISNA reported on Monday.

The MOU was signed when Rajesh Kotecha, the secretary in the Ministry of AYUSH visited Tehran on November 26 and 27. 

Mohsen Asadi Lari, the Iranian deputy health minister for international affairs, Mahmoud Khodadoust, head of the Iranian traditional medicine department at the Ministry of Health and Prof. Asim Ali Khan, director general of Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM) at AYUSH were the other officials who signed the document.

Sharing technical science, cooperation between academic centers of the two countries, establishing a technical committee to examine new potentials in furthering scientific and economic exchanges in the field of medicine, the exchange of professors, students, books and resources as well as research results and articles were the main topics that the two sides agreed on, according to Dr. Arman Zargaran, counselor of the Iranian traditional medicine department at the Ministry of Health.  

The two sides also discussed signing an agreement between Tehran University of Medical Sciences and AYUSH Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM) in near future as well as Indian government’s plan to fund the development of a new course on Indian traditional medicine at Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), traditional herbal medicines are naturally occurring, plant-derived substances with minimal or no industrial processing that have been used to treat illness within local or regional healing practices. Traditional herbal medicines are getting significant attention in global health debates.

Medicinal plants still form the basis of traditional or indigenous health systems and are reported by WHO to still be used by a majority of populations in most developing countries including Iran.

SJ/MQ/MG