Health minister encourages development of traditional medicine in fight against Covid-19

By DMG 03 Sep 2021

DMG Newsroom
3 September 2021, Sittwe

Herbal plant therapies and other traditional medicine practices may help to treat Covid-19, said the military regime’s health minister, Dr. Thet Khaing Win.

During a coordination meeting at the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 Central Command Center on September 2, Dr. Thet Khaing Win encouraged the conducting of research to develop medicines to be used in Covid-19 prevention and treatment, according to state media.

The minister noted that many people already rely on Myanmar traditional medicine practices to treat fever and other symptoms associated with the viral respiratory disease.

Myanmar’s Department of Traditional Medicine is also working to prevent and treat Covid-19 disease and has planned to systematically treat the disease using medicines used currently at the traditional medicine clinic, he said.

As of September 3, there were 409,509 confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 15,693 associated deaths, according to the junta’s Ministry of Health.

The military government has launched an ongoing vaccination campaign in Myanmar, with residents of camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Arakan State’s Myebon Township among the latest to receive their first shots of the Chinese manufactured and donated Sinovac vaccine, state media reported on Friday.