Regional health systems achieve a polio milestone

Publication date: the Lichinga account described the inauguration of land for sustainable cultivation of plants used by traditional practitioners.

Publication date: institute director Felisbela Gaspar took part in the Lichinga gathering described by WHO.

Publication date: WHO described training practitioners to recognize serious illness and refer patients to formal care.

The region’s member states received certification of interrupted indigenous wild poliovirus transmission.

India’s last wild case was in 2011, and regional certification followed sustained surveillance.

This milestone did not mean that all forms of polio risk worldwide had disappeared.

The World Health Assembly approved the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014–2023 on this date, acknowledging that practices differ across regions.

The strategy sought a stronger evidence base to help countries make informed decisions about traditional and complementary medicine.

The Assembly-backed strategy called for quality assurance, safety, proper use and regulation rather than blanket endorsement of treatments.

Assessing whether traditional and complementary practices work was explicitly among the strategy’s stated aims.