Speakers at a daylong workshop have called for more expansion of herbal plant cultivation and promotion of herbal medicine to meet up the gradually increase in the people's demand.
They viewed emphasis should be given to peoples participationtowards large- scale cultivation of herbal plants as the role of herbal products in improvement of public health is inevitable.
In this context, mainstreaming traditional medicine into public health care to achieve the objective of improved access to healthcare facilities needs to be considered, they added.
Bangladesh Ayurbedik Medicine Manufacturers Association organized the regional workshop titled "Herbal plants production, harvest, conservation and application of Ayurbedik medicine" held at Nanking Darbar Hall in Rajshahi city yesterday, reports BSS.
Main thrusts of the workshop were to see and update the knowledge on the contributions of natural products, such as plants from the natural resources to medicine and healthcare.Medicinal Plants and Herbal Products Business Promotion Council of Bangladesh supported the workshop.
With Fakrul Islam Munshi, President of the associaion, in the chair, former Mayor of Rajshahi City Corporaion AHM Khairuzzaman Liton, Prof Dr Golam Sadique of Pharmacy Department and Prof Dr Hamidul Haque of Chemistry Department of Rajshahi University spoke on the occasion.
Fakhrul Islam Munshi said the present government has exempted VAT on the herbal products aimed at fostering the sector and urged all the authorities concerned to unearth its potentialities.
Besides, he laid stress on creating mass awareness about the medicine through arranging more advocacy meeting, seminar and symposium.
As many as 80 percent of people rely on traditional medicines for their primary healthcare and remedies, and the use of traditional medicines is rising in the country like other developed ones, he opined.
"A new avenue for herbal medicine has opened up as many investors are looking for venturing in making such medicines," he added.
In this regard, he said some of the well-known allopathic drug makers are gearing up for establishing herbal medicine units.
Fakhrul Munshi said Bangladesh is the home to over 550 medicinal plants of which 300 are commonly used in the preparation of traditional medicines around the country; the market for traditional and herbal products is worth around Tk3.3bn annually.
Prof Golam Sadique said the country’s drug administrator has set a definition for herbal medicine and selected a set of reference books for manufacturers to follow while making herbal medicines to push the sector forward.
The sector started pulling attention after the government had endorsed herbal medicine in the drug policy along with two other traditional branches of medicine- Ayurbedic and Unani.
He said the demand for herbal medicine is on rise as it has no side effect on human body. Prof Sadique said natural compounds are contributing towards medicine and healthcare systems and their use is not really declining.
"In Bangladesh, if we consider traditional medical knowledge and home remedies as a baseline, natural products and traditional medicine is being used possibly by 80% of our population," he says.
Around 150 herbal medicine practitioners, manufacturers, government officials and others concerned attended the workshop.
