From IRIN, a look at tra­di­tional med­i­cine mak­ing a come­back in Myanmar.

Four years after con­tract­ing rheumatic fever, Mee Naing, 28, finally beat the dis­ease with the help of tra­di­tional medicine.

Rheumatic fever can recur if not treated with long-term antibi­otics, but because Mee Naing could not afford the med­i­cine, she suf­fered from a bad bout of the dis­ease for many months.

She finally went to a tra­di­tional med­i­cine clinic and under­went a course of pills and balms and her health grad­u­ally improved.

“What­ever ail­ments I have, nowa­days I take tra­di­tional drugs, which I can afford,” said Mee Naing, whose monthly income as a mar­ket­ing assis­tant is less than US$40.

More than 85 per­cent of country’s pop­u­la­tion of about 57.5 mil­lion uses tra­di­tional med­i­cines, accord­ing to gov­ern­ment fig­ures, partly to sup­ple­ment west­ern med­i­cine and partly as an alternative.

“Tra­di­tional med­i­cine is quite afford­able and acces­si­ble for peo­ple from all walks of life, which are the fun­da­men­tal rea­sons why most peo­ple use it,” Maung Nyan, pres­i­dent of the Myan­mar Tra­di­tional Med­i­cine Prac­ti­tion­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion, told IRIN.

Prac­ti­tion­ers say peo­ple in rural areas — about 70 per­cent of Myanmar’s pop­u­la­tion — rely more on tra­di­tional med­i­cine than in urban areas, since it is more widely avail­able and afford­able than west­ern medicine.

Tra­di­tional med­i­cine is also 10–20 times cheaper than west­ern med­i­cine — a huge fac­tor when 32.7 per­cent of peo­ple live below the poverty line, accord­ing to specialists.

Gov­ern­ment promotion

Tra­di­tional med­i­cine, in the form of pills, pow­ders and balms, has been used in Myan­mar since 600 BC, but only recently has the gov­ern­ment moved to for­mal­ize its role in the health­care system.

A Tra­di­tional Med­i­cine Drug Law intro­duced in 1996 con­trols the qual­ity, pro­duc­tion and sale of the drugs. The gov­ern­ment has also intro­duced good man­u­fac­tur­ing prac­tices, while the pro­duc­tion, pack­ag­ing and stor­age of med­i­cines have been modernized.

These stan­dards mean that “pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in indige­nous drugs has greatly been enhanced”, notes the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion in Myan­mar in its 2009 health report for the country.

“There is a pro­gres­sive increase in demand for tra­di­tional med­i­cine not only in rural areas but also in urban areas,” it states.

There are 14 tra­di­tional med­i­cine hos­pi­tals, and 237 dis­trict and town­ship clin­ics and sub-centres across the coun­try, while there are more than 10,000 prac­ti­tion­ers, accord­ing to the Myan­mar Tra­di­tional Med­i­cine Prac­ti­tion­ers’ Association.

In 2007, the gov­ern­ment estab­lished the first national herbal park on 81 hectares of land in the new cap­i­tal, Naypyi­daw, to grow plants to treat dis­eases such as diar­rhoea, dysen­tery, cholera, dia­betes, hyper­ten­sion, malaria and tuberculosis.

A long tradition

“Tra­di­tional med­i­cine has regained its golden age,” said Aung Naing, who prac­tises both tra­di­tional and west­ern med­i­cine, choos­ing one or the other depend­ing on a patient’s illness.

Most tra­di­tional prac­ti­tion­ers com­bine tra­di­tional med­i­cines with west­ern equip­ment, such as blood pres­sure monitors.

“Tra­di­tional med­i­cine is very effec­tive in cur­ing chronic dis­eases such as dia­betes, rheumatic fever, rheuma­toid arthri­tis, hyper­ten­sion, stroke, paral­y­sis, motor paral­y­sis, malaria, and men­strual dis­or­ders,” said Mya Win, 66, who has prac­tised tra­di­tional med­i­cine for 49 years.

While it can­not cure dis­eases such as can­cer or HIV/AIDS, it has fewer side-effects than west­ern med­i­cine, said Mya Win.

Knowl­edge of Burmese tra­di­tional med­i­cine has been handed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion for cen­turies, and is influ­enced by tra­di­tions from neigh­bour­ing coun­tries such as India and China.

Most of the med­i­cines are of plant ori­gin, although ani­mal, min­eral or aquatic mate­r­ial is also used.

In 1976, the gov­ern­ment estab­lished the Insti­tute of Myan­mar Tra­di­tional Med­i­cine to train tra­di­tional med­i­cine prac­ti­tion­ers, while the Uni­ver­sity of Myan­mar Tra­di­tional Med­i­cine was estab­lished in Man­dalay in 2001. The cur­ricu­lum cov­ers tra­di­tional med­i­cine, sci­ence and basic con­cepts of west­ern medicine.

“Today, more and more young peo­ple are inter­ested in learn­ing tra­di­tional med­i­cine as the role of the med­i­cine becomes larger and larger in the coun­try,” Aung Myint, the university’s rec­tor, told IRIN.

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