The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for a new dimension in health care delivery, a challenge that India can meet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday during the groundbreaking function for the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in Jamnagar.
The centre will become the first global outpost for traditional medicine across the world, and aims to leverage new technologies and evidence-based research in an effort to mainstream such methods.
The function was attended by World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Kumar Jugnauth.
“India considers it her duty to share experiences in Ayurveda and integrative medicine with world… India’s yoga tradition is already helping the world fight diseases like diabetes, obesity and depression,” Modi said.
“The WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine (GCTM) is a recognition of India’s contribution and potential in this field…India takes this partnership as a huge responsibility for serving the entire humanity,” he added in his address.
“The importance of wellness in our lives became evident during the pandemic. This is why the world today needs a new dimension for health care delivery. I am glad to note that this year, WHO’s theme of “our planet, our health” takes forward India’s own “one Earth, one health” approach,” he said.
“This is a truly global project…the world will come to Jamnagar and India, and Jamnagar and India will go to the world through traditional medicine. I hope this will be an important thing that will bring the world together,” Ghebreyesus said in his address.
This was the 57-year-old Ghebreyesus’s first visit to India since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak — an event that put him on the global centre stage.
He said traditional medicines products are abound globally, and the Jamnagar centre will go a long way in bringing the promise of the traditional medicine to fruition. For many regions of the world, traditional medicine is the first line of treatment. GCTM will focus on data, innovation and sustainability and will optimise the use of traditional medicine, he added.
The centre’s five main areas will be research and leadership, evidence and learning, data and analytics, sustainability and equity, and innovation and technology, said Ghebreyesus.
“Examples of traditional medicines being turned into modern medicines abound around the world, from throughout India with such products as turmeric, neem and jamun, and from indigenous communities in Brazil to the Kalahari desert. But when it comes to how these products are identified, developed, and tested, and how the benefits are shared with the communities that nurtured them — on that, there is still much work to be done,” he said.
“Today marks a critical step in helping to bring the promise of traditional medicine to fruition, to the benefit of people around the globe,” he added.
Modi’s positioning of India and its traditional medicines as a global health asset comes on the heels of India’s role in Covid-19 vaccine supplies. Indian vaccine-makers such as Serum Institute of India (SII) and Biological E are among the world’s largest manufacturers by volume, with Pune-based SII among the biggest suppliers to the WHO-led Covax Facility for vaccine distribution to low and middle-income countries.
Video messages from the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and the President of Maldives were played on the occasion. Union ministers Dr Mansukh Mandavia, Sarbananda Sonowal, Munjapara Mahendrabhai, and the chief minister of Gujarat, Bhupendrabhai Patel were among those present.
Jamnagar’s contributions towards wellness will get a global identity with WHO’s Global Centre for Traditional Medicine, Modi adding, saying that more than five decades ago, the world’s first Ayurvedic University was established in the city.
In his speech, Modi stressed on attaining wellness as the ultimate goal.
“India’s traditional medicine system is not limited to treatment. It is a holistic science of life. Ayurveda goes beyond just healing and treatment,” said Modi, adding that in Ayurveda, apart from healing and treatment, social health, mental health-happiness, environmental health, sympathy, compassion and productivity are included. “Ayurveda is taken as the knowledge of life and it has been deemed as the fifth Veda,” he said.
Modi also highlighted the three-decade long association with Mauritian PM Jugnauth and his family.
Later, on Tuesday evening, Modi and Jugnauth landed from Jamnagar to Ahmedabad, where they participated in a roadshow. About 30 platforms have been erected at regular intervals on the two and half-kilometre-long route from the airport circle to the Indira Bridge where troupes performed.
Modi is on a three-day visit to his home state of Gujarat from April 18-20 where he will inaugurate development projects worth over ₹20,000 crore.
On April 20, he will inaugurate the Global AYUSH Investment & Innovation Summit at Gandhinagar.
