India, US to work on AYUSH route to fight cancer

NEW DELHI: India has partnered with the US to collaborate on research and development of traditional medicines for preventive and palliative cancer care, a move aimed at bringing in more global acceptability and credibility for AYUSH medicines.

The collaboration between the two countries is also expected to open a huge market for AYUSH practitioners globally.

“Globalisation of AYUSH is one of the major policy thrusts of our government. The constructive collaboration between India and US in this field is important for incorporating more scientific inputs from both sides in traditional medicines which can help mainstreaming of AYUSH systems in patient health care across the globe,” AYUSH minister Shripad Yesso Naik said.

As part of the partnership, researchers from India and the US will start discussions to review and cooperate on methods to reduce morbidity due to cancer using AYUSH interventions.

Representatives from the US department of health and human services, Office of Global Affairs, National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Cancer Institute (NCI) and US academic institutions will interact with their counterparts from the ministry of ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha and homoeopathy (AYUSH) and Indian research institutes and universities during the workshop.

India has already partnered with the World Health Organization (WHO) to spread use of alternative medicines including Ayurveda and homoeopathy.

“This is a great opportunity to bring to the table from the US side NCI and NIH expertise in laboratory and clinical evaluation of traditional medicine and from the Indian side an impressive commitment to building the evidence base for traditional Indian medicine,” said Edward Trimble, director of the US National Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health.