March 4

CURRENTLY, the government has decided to cooperate with the international community in conducting research on infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and non-infectious chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

Myanmar’s life expectancy is about 67.42 years which is lower than that of regional and neighbouring countries. It is necessary to expose the root cause of the low life expectancy based on the medical research works. If so, findings of applied health research should be disseminated to the people in various ways and means for having basic health conditions and healthy longevity.

The arena of medical research needs to cover traditional medicine and western-style medical education. Traditional medicines are made of their own therapies to create the excellent potent items of traditional medicines to be used in treatment for people. As such, it is necessary to seek advice, experiences and expertise from veteran traditional medicine practitioners in discovering new therapies for the diseases. Consequently, Myanmar’s traditional medicines will be capable of penetrating the international community.

Now, the arena of traditional medicine has progressed in taking preventive, control and treatment measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. If the firm and exact data come out from the research works, the treatment using traditional medicines can be given to the COVID-19 patients, bringing a great benefit to the people.

If those from traditional medicine can show off their brilliant skills in treatment, it can win the trust of the entire people. It is because all the ethnic nationals residing across the nation have their own techniques of giving treatment to ethnics with the use of relevant herbal plants. Various ways and methods of indigenous medicines can be identified as traditional medicines.

In the past, some veteran traditional medicine practitioners confined followers and observers to their experiences and knowledge based on methods of traditional medicine not to pass this medical knowledge on to their juniors. Regrettably, invaluable knowledge about traditional medicines was lost in the event of those veteran practitioners when they passed away. Hence, very potent Myanmar’s traditional medicine knowledge is gradually down.

Now is an important time for all citizens to discover potent therapies of Myanmar traditional medicine to be applied for benefiting the entire people. Acutally, both Myanmar traditional medicine and western-style medicines will help raise the life expectancy of Myanmar people in the coming years. GNLM