Published The World Health Organization (WHO) has redesignated the Center of Applied Thai Traditional Medicine (CATTM), Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University as WHO Collaborating Centre for Traditional Medicine (WHO CC) from February 8th, 2022 – February 8th, 2026. Siriraj’s CATTM has been designated as WHO CC for Traditional Medicine since 2018 with the missions as follows;
– To support WHO in organizing WHO meetings on benchmarks for practice in traditional medicine
– To support WHO in the development of WHO benchmark for practice in Nuad Thai
– To support WHO in the development of WHO terminology on Thai traditional medicine
– To support WHO in organizing collaborative inter-regional or regional meetings/workshops to support the development and implementation of WHO – TM strategy 2014 – 2023 based on Thai traditional medicine
The WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014-2023 guides the work of Traditional, Complementary and Integrative medicine (TCI) globally. The strategic objectives and actions and proposed indicators outlined in the TM Strategy serve as reference to align the terms of reference and workplan with the expertise of every WHOCC. The subject areas span from herbal medicines to non-medicine interventions in the area of TCI, with collaborative activities ranging from research, capacity building and technical advice to policy implementation. WHOCC’s are a major technical resource and are advised to develop their workplan for implementing the global and regional strategies/resolutions on TCI. WHO intentionally invites several WHOCCs to participate in WHO technical meetings to encourage interaction in subareas of expertise. In view the diverse nature of TCI globally, WHO gives due consideration to the geographical representation and expertise of proposed WHOCCs to enable collaboration between the WHOCCs in the network. Currently, there is representation from all Regions except AFRO and EMRO (under discussion with ROs on this subject). In the past WHO has held meetings of WHOCC Directors to promote information exchange between the WHOCCs and planning collaborative activities. More such meetings will be organized in the future depending on the availability of resources. Certain Regions, for example, WPRO, regularly organize meetings of their Regional WHOCCs wherein WHOCCs for TCI get an opportunity to explore collaboration with other WHOCCs – on TCI and other subject areas in the Region.
