The Minister of State (I/C) for AYUSH Shri Shripad Naik held an Interactive Meeting with Ambassadors/High Commissioners of 15 countries on Globalisation of Traditional and Alternative Systems of Medicine in New Delhi on 20 December, 2018. The meeting was coordinated by Central Research Council of Research in Ayurvedic Sciences, New Delhi. The meeting was attended by Ambassadors/High commissioners of Bhutan, UAE, Cuba, Iran, Ghana, Hungary, Trinidad, Oman, Equatorial Guinea, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Switzerland, Mauritius, Bangladesh and The United Kingdom.

The focus of the meeting was on role played by Traditional and Complementary Systems of Medicine (TM&CM) in the health care of people, with respect to combating non-communicable diseases and promotion of health alongside the modern medicine across the world with very low cost.

Ambassadors, High commissioners and representatives from the participating countries acknowledged the need for diligent integration of TM&CM with modern medicine in combating Non-Communicable diseases to reduce the exorbitant health care expenditure for individuals and to the National exchequer. There was consensus in the meeting that all stake holding countries should come together to work for the globalization of traditional medicine systems for the benefit of humanity. For this purpose, it was acknowledged, induction of Indian Medical systems like Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) of the WHO would be desirable.

The efforts made by the Ministry in creating Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) morbidity codes and standardized terminologies in line with W.H.O guidelines for quantification and reporting of health services by AYUSH systems at national level through NAMASTE portal were also discussed.