BRAZIL: Public Health Embraces Herbal Medicines

2.6.09

BRAZIL: Public Health Embraces Herbal Medicines: "By Fabiana Frayssinet

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 1 (IPS) - Handed down from generation to generation, traditional knowledge about medicinal plants has reached state laboratories in Brazil through a programme that has already identified 71 native and exotic species for producing herbal medicines.

The National Programme of Medicinal Plants and Phytotherapeutics was created around the time when the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 1978, recognised the use of medicinal plants for prophylactic, curative, palliative and diagnostic purposes, and recommended that public health policies include them.

According to the Health Ministry, Brazil is the country with the greatest plant genetic diversity in the world, with close to 55,000 classified species out of an estimated total of between 350,000 and 550,000. It also has a deep-rooted culture of the use of medicinal plants, linked to traditional folk wisdom."