TEHRAN –Around 500 Persian medicine experts are providing health and medical treatment services across the country.

More than 1,000 general practitioners who have passed the Persian medicine courses approved by the health ministry are also offering services, Mehr news agency quoted Nafiseh Hosseini-Yekta, the director of the health ministry’s Persian medicine office, as saying.

Currently, nine faculties of Persian medicine enroll students in the country’s universities, she added.

Training Persian medicine experts has always been at the top of the Persian medicine office’s agenda. Therefore, different skill courses have been developed and held under the supervision of the health ministry.

People highly welcome traditional medicine

On January 7, Hosseini-Yekta said surveys show that more than 80 percent of people in the country intend to benefit from Iranian traditional medicine, ILNA reported.

Their interest in traditional medicine has never faded, she said, adding that traditional medicine is being taught in universities.

Traditional medicine has its roots in the culture, customs, and traditions of Iranians and has always been of interest to them, the official highlighted.

With over five hundred graduates in the field and numerous research articles that have been published, the country has been able to improve its position by being ranked fourth in the production of science in the field of traditional medicine in the world, following China, India, and the United States.

She went on to say that traditional medicine and conventional medicine are complementary. Each of these medicines has unique capabilities that can be used together.

But it can only be prescribed by someone who has fully mastered both fields.

Unfortunately, extremists threaten people's health by either misusing their interest in traditional medicine or depriving them of the right to use the indigenous medicine of the country along with conventional medicine.

Draft on traditional medicine strategy

In November 2023, Iran attended the World Health Organization’s consultative sessions on developing a draft of a new traditional medicine strategy as the only representative from West Asia.

The event took place from November 27-30, 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland, IRIB reported.

Arman Zargaran, Iran's advisor to the traditional medicine office at the Ministry of Health, participated in the event at the invitation of the WHO headquarters in Geneva.

The International Regulatory Cooperation for Herbal Medicines Unit of WHO, WHO-IRCH, invited 20 experts in the field of traditional medicine from all over the world to develop a draft of traditional medicine strategy for the period 2025-2034.

The invited experts were from China (3 representatives), Australia, Canada, Switzerland, (2 representatives each), Iran, Malaysia, England, South Korea, South Africa, Ghana, Norway, Thailand, Philippines, Brazil, and India (1 representative each).

Within 3 days of intensive work, the entire initial draft was reviewed in the presence of Rudi Eggers, WHO Director of Integrated Health Services, and Kim Sungchol, head of the WHO Traditional Complementary and Integrative Medicine Unit.

MT/MG