The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged its member countries to introduce regulation of alternative and traditional medicines to make them safer and more accessible for patients.
Urging its members to act, WHO said that misuse of herbal remedies was widespread, pointing out that deaths have resulted from improper use of Chinese herbs.
Jonathan Quick, director of WHO’s essential drugs and medicines policy said that complementary remedies needed to be subjected to the same rigorous testing and clinical trial procedure as modern pharmaceuticals.
WHO estimates that as many as 75% of people with HIV in major western cities such as London and San Francisco as well as resource poor countries, including South Africa, have used herbal or alternative medicines.
NAM recently published a Directory of Complementary Therapies in HIV and AIDS which looks at the peer-reviewed scientific evidence for the effectiveness (or otherwise) of complementary and alternative therapies used by people with HIV.
Herbal and complementary remedies are currently regulated by 70 WHO member states, and WHO is emphasising that it is only through regulation that quality, safety and efficacy can be ensured. However, there are additional problems conducting clinical trials with traditional remedies which are not present in trials for modern pharmaceuticals, not least that patients are often able to detect placebos due to a different taste. Quality control is also a problem as various plants have to be combined.
NAM’s Directory of Complementary Therapies in HIV/AIDSis free to people affected by HIV. Contact info@nam.org.uk fo further details. Please note the printed guide is only available free to people with HIV in the UK, but if you live outside the UK and want to receive the pdf version, please contact info@nam.org.uk.