Building stronger and safer systems through shared regulatory innovation
As traditional medicine becomes increasingly embedded in mainstream healthcare worldwide, the World Health Organization convened regulators and researchers from eighteen countries in Macao to confront an ancient tension made newly urgent: how to honor the healing practices millions depend upon while ensuring those practices meet rigorous, consistent standards of safety. The gathering, held in late October 2025, was not merely a conference but a deliberate act of collective will — an attempt to transform a decade-long global strategy into the practical machinery of patient protection. In a world where herbal remedies cross borders as freely as ideas, the question of who sets the standard, and how, carries consequences that reach far beyond any single nation's pharmacy shelf.
- Traditional medicine is entering mainstream health systems faster than the regulatory frameworks designed to govern it, creating a widening gap between widespread use and verified safety.
- More than forty regulators from eighteen countries arrived in Macao carrying different national systems, different standards, and the shared frustration of having solved the same problems in isolation.
- Cutting-edge tools — DNA barcoding to confirm what is actually inside an herbal product, AI-assisted ingredient identification — are already in use in some countries, but remain unknown or inaccessible to others.
- The workshop is a direct response to the 2025 World Health Assembly's endorsement of a new global traditional medicine strategy, and the pressure to move that strategy from declaration to implementation is real and timed.
- The outcomes will flow directly into the 2nd WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit, where countries will face the harder question: whether they are willing to surrender some regulatory autonomy in exchange for a genuinely harmonized global standard.
In late October, the World Health Organization brought together more than forty regulators, scientists, and health officials from eighteen countries in Macao to address a problem that has grown more pressing as traditional medicine moves into the center of mainstream healthcare: how to guarantee that herbal remedies, acupuncture, and complementary treatments meet consistent, reliable standards of safety and quality.
The three-day workshop drew participants from six WHO regions — including Angola, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and others — people who do not merely study these systems but are responsible for regulating them at home. They came to share what their countries had built: DNA barcoding techniques to verify herbal ingredients, artificial intelligence tools to identify product contents, and national pharmacopeias that standardize preparation methods. These innovations represent years of parallel effort by nations working largely alone on the same fundamental challenge.
The workshop was organized around three pillars — scientific evidence, regulatory policy, and patient safety monitoring — and was designed to translate the newly endorsed WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy for 2025–2034 into concrete country-level action. The strategy's aim is not to position traditional medicine against modern medicine, but to integrate it thoughtfully into national health systems in service of universal health coverage.
Dr. Kim Sungchol captured the gathering's purpose plainly at the opening session: isolated national efforts are no longer sufficient, and the world needs harmonized approaches built from shared experience. The host institution, the WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine in Macao — designated in 2015 — has trained more than 3,100 professionals in the decade since, and its director used the occasion to reaffirm the region's commitment to regulatory convergence.
The work done in Macao will feed directly into the 2nd WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit, where a dedicated session on regulation will force the harder questions into the open — about common standards, national sovereignty, and the enduring tension between expanding access and ensuring safety. For now, the workshop represents something quieter but essential: regulators from across the world sitting together, learning what their counterparts have built, and beginning to imagine a shared system that does not yet exist.
In late October, the World Health Organization gathered more than forty regulators, researchers, and health officials from across the globe in Macao to tackle a problem that has grown more urgent as traditional medicine becomes woven into mainstream healthcare systems: how to ensure that herbal remedies, acupuncture treatments, and other complementary practices meet consistent safety and quality standards.
The three-day workshop, held from October 22 to 24, brought together participants from eighteen countries spanning six WHO regions—Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Laos, Malaysia, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam, along with representatives from Hong Kong and Macao. The attendees were not casual observers but the people who actually regulate these products in their home countries: government officials responsible for approval and oversight, laboratory scientists, academic researchers, and staff from WHO's network of collaborating centers. They came to share what works, what doesn't, and how to build systems that protect patients without stifling access to treatments millions of people rely on.
The workshop was organized around three core themes: the scientific evidence behind traditional medicine products, the policy and regulatory frameworks that govern them, and patient safety monitoring. These three pillars, organizers argued, form the foundation for any credible system of quality assurance. During the sessions, countries presented concrete innovations they had developed—DNA barcoding techniques to verify the actual contents of herbal ingredients, artificial intelligence tools to identify what's really in a bottle, and the creation of national pharmacopeias that standardize preparation methods and ingredient specifications. These are not theoretical exercises. They represent years of work by individual nations trying to solve the same problem independently.
The timing of the workshop reflects a broader shift in global health policy. Earlier in 2025, the World Health Assembly endorsed a new WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy covering the decade from 2025 to 2034. This strategy is not about promoting traditional medicine as an alternative to modern medicine, but about integrating it thoughtfully into national health systems in ways that align with the goal of universal health coverage. The workshop was designed to move that strategy from paper into action—to show countries how to actually implement it.
Dr. Kim Sungchol, speaking at the opening session, framed the gathering as a test of whether global health institutions can translate broad strategic commitments into practical work on the ground. "This workshop reflects WHO's commitment to translating global strategies into concrete country action," he said. "By sharing practical experiences and regulatory innovations, Member States are collectively building stronger and safer systems for traditional, complementary and integrative medicine." The language was measured, but the underlying message was clear: isolated national efforts are not enough. The world needs harmonized approaches.
The workshop also marked a milestone for the host institution. The WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine in Macao was designated a decade ago, in 2015. Over that ten years, it has trained more than 3,100 professionals through workshops and training programs. Dr. Lo Iek Long, director of the Macao Health Bureau, used the occasion to reaffirm the region's commitment to this work and to advancing what he called regulatory harmonization across the region—the idea that countries can learn from each other's standards and move toward common ground.
The outcomes of this workshop will feed directly into the next major gathering: the 2nd WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit, where a dedicated session will focus specifically on regulating traditional and complementary medicine products. That summit will be where the real pressure points emerge—where countries will have to decide whether they are willing to adopt common standards, and where the tension between access and safety will be most visible. For now, the workshop represents the groundwork: regulators from around the world sitting in the same room, learning what their counterparts have built, and beginning to imagine what a genuinely global system of quality assurance might look like.
Notable Quotes
This workshop reflects WHO's commitment to translating global strategies into concrete country action. By sharing practical experiences and regulatory innovations, Member States are collectively building stronger and safer systems for traditional, complementary and integrative medicine.— Dr. Kim Sungchol, WHO official
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a workshop on traditional medicine regulation matter? Isn't this just bureaucrats talking to each other?
It matters because billions of people use traditional medicine, and most countries have almost no way to verify that what's in the bottle is actually what the label says it is. A workshop like this is where regulators from different countries realize they're all trying to solve the same problem—and that they don't have to solve it alone.
What's the actual problem being solved? What goes wrong when there's no regulation?
Contamination, mislabeling, dangerous interactions with prescription drugs, products that don't contain the active ingredient at all. A patient in one country might take something that's been tested and verified safe, while a patient in another country takes something with the same name that's completely different. There's no consistency.
So the workshop is about creating one global standard?
Not exactly one standard—countries have different traditions and needs. But it's about building frameworks that work, sharing the tools that actually catch problems, and creating enough common ground that a regulator in Brazil can learn from what worked in Vietnam.
What's the DNA barcoding they mentioned?
It's a way to verify what plant material is actually in a product. You extract DNA from the herb and match it against a database. It catches counterfeits and substitutions that you'd never catch by looking at the product or testing it chemically.
And this is new?
New to many countries. Some have been using it for years. That's why the workshop exists—to spread what works, so countries don't have to reinvent the wheel.