Health officials attending the International Congress on Traditional Medicine said on Saturday that traditional medicine should be integrated with the worldwide mainstream health service systems.

"We see traditional medicine as a part of health service development, and we believe that traditional medicine rooted in ancient wisdom and validated by modern science will have value in the new century," Shigeru Omi, region director of World Health Organization (WHO) Global Office for the Western Pacific said at the opening ceremony.

The three-day international congress on the development and application of traditional medicine in the new century closes today.

More than 2,500 health officials and traditional medicine specialists from 43 countries and regions participated in the congress.

Policy-making forums, academic symposiums and an exhibition featuring new traditional medicines were held at the Beijing International Convention Centre.

Symposiums focused on the newest findings in laboratory and clinical research. The diseases ranged from cerebral and cardiovascular diseases, rheumatism, diabetes, and cancer, to HIV/AIDS and old age-related illnesses.

Other topics included modernization of traditional Chinese medicine, developments in drugs, and non-drug therapies.

Chinese Health Minister Zhang Wenkang said that "traditional medicine is facing an opportunity for development" as its importance has been recognized around the world.

The Chinese Government has always attached great importance to the development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and defined the policy of "giving the equal importance to both the Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine" for health work in the 21th century.

(From Chinadaily)