WHO at World Health Summit: integrate traditional medicine, but with evidence

The World Health Organization (WHO) on October 19, 2026 published its account of a session on traditional medicine held at the World Health Summit 2026 in Berlin, where speakers called for traditional medicine to move from being valued in principle to being fully built into national health systems. The session, "Building Resilient Health Systems: Unlocking the Public Health Potential of Traditional Medicine", took place on October 11, 2026. Dr Shyama Kuruvilla, acting director of the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre, used it to present WHO's emerging Living Well initiative, which the organisation describes as a platform linking traditional knowledge with science.

The World Health Summit is one of the main yearly meeting points for health ministers, researchers and global health agencies. A dedicated session on traditional medicine there shows the subject moving from the margins of global health discussion towards its centre, a shift India has supported through the Ministry of Ayush.

The message from the session was balanced, and that balance matters for Ayush. Speakers argued that traditional medicine can contribute to prevention, primary care, mental well-being and community resilience, but only when it rests on solid evidence and proper regulation, and when traditional, public health and biomedical systems work together. For Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy, that sets the test: wider access has to come with research and quality standards behind it. It is also a reminder that no system gets a place in national health plans on tradition alone.

The WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre, whose acting director led the WHO remarks, is based in Jamnagar in Gujarat, which gives India a direct stake in how this agenda develops. Dr Kuruvilla described resilience as building capacity in people, communities, health systems and the environment, and presented the Living Well initiative as WHO's vehicle for connecting traditional knowledge with scientific research. The WHO report does not set out the initiative's scope, funding or timeline.

The emphasis on protecting Indigenous knowledge is the other notable thread. Much traditional medicine is held by communities rather than written in textbooks, and speakers said integration must not come at the cost of those communities' rights over their knowledge.

Short-term: The session adds weight to WHO's push, under its traditional medicine strategy, for countries to set evidence and regulation standards before integrating traditional practices into public health services.

Long-term: If the Living Well initiative takes shape, it could become a channel for research partnerships in which Indian institutions, through the Jamnagar centre, play a leading part. Countries that integrate traditional medicine will be judged on the quality of their evidence and regulation.

Who is affected: Ayush practitioners and researchers in India, health ministries working on integrated care, traditional and Indigenous healers whose knowledge is at stake, and patients who use traditional medicine alongside conventional treatment.

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