Official: Medicine of China's ethnic minorities faces challenge ahead
While progress has been made in both the research and practice of Chinese medicine of ethnic minorities in recent years, their future development still faces challenge, said Wang Guoqiang, director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SATC).
China has published over 100 works on ethnic medicines such as the Compendium of Herbs of Ethnic Minorities, a tome which documents 396 herbs of Tibetan nationality, 422 herbs of Mongolian nationality, 423 herbs of Uygur nationality and 400 herbs of Dai nationality.
Currently, 14 research institutes or universities offered courses on ethnic minority medicine to 17,000 students. Currently,156 pharmaceutical companies specialize in ethnic medicine. In addition, by the end of 2006, 15 ethnic minorities had their own hospitals.
"The special curative effects and low price of ethnic minority medicine are welcomed by ethnic minority people," Wang said.
Tibetan medicine has marked curative effects in treating altitude sickness, digestive problems and rheumatic disease. Mongolian medicine was good at curing diabetes and blood disease.
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