Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau attended the 2024 World Conference on Traditional Medicine in Beijing today.

Prof Lo led a delegation to take part in discussions on issues including legislation and regulation, policy formulation, service development, education and scientific research on traditional medicine, and promotion of integration of traditional medicine into healthcare service systems.

The conference was jointly organised by the National Health Commission, the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality in collaboration with the World Health Organization, bringing together the organisers’ representatives, health officials from around the world as well as experts and academics in the traditional medicine field.

Prof Lo highlighted that in terms of traditional medicine development, Hong Kong embraces a distinctive healthcare system with pure Chinese medicine (CM) as well as Chinese and Western medicine adopted on a dual-track basis.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government strives to make use of the city's advantages in medical education, regulatory regime, standard-setting, clinical research and more to leverage its gateway role to connect with the world, developing it into a bridgehead for the internationalisation of CM, he added.

“Over the past two decades, Hong Kong has made significant progress in CM education, research and service development, etc. CM and Western medicine synergistically complement each other in their respective areas of expertise.

“The Hospital Authority has been developing an innovative Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine (ICWM) service model in public hospitals, forming the leading force in the realm of traditional medicine.”

He also noted that Hong Kong's first Chinese medicine hospital will commence services in phases starting from the end of next year, providing outpatient and inpatient services in pure CM, CM-predominant and ICWM.

The health chief supplemented that the Department of Health is developing standards for commonly used Chinese Materia Medica (CMM) in phases to ensure its safe use, while the department’s Chinese Medicine Regulatory Office has been designated as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine since 2012.

Additionally, the department's Government Chinese Medicines Testing Institute specialises in the testing of and scientific research on CM to establish internationally-recognised reference standards for the safety, quality and testing methods of CM.

The department earlier launched the Digital Herbarium for Chinese Medicines - the first in the world using photogrammetry to produce three dimensional images on traceable CMM specimens - providing comprehensive and accurate information on CM, thereby promoting traditional CM to go global, Prof Lo added.

Director of Health Ronald Lam chaired the conference’s panel discussion, engaging with the WHO representatives, health officials from various countries and regions and academics to explore the role of traditional medicine in primary healthcare.

Representatives of the department and the Hospital Authority also participated in parallel sessions under different themes, sharing the experiences of utilising acupuncture in supporting smoking cessation and the policy visions in ICWM respectively.