These three organizations have presented the technical report ‘Mapping the application of artificial intelligence in traditional medicine’ this Friday, within the framework of the Global Initiative on AI for Health, which offers a roadmap to harness this potential responsibly, while safeguarding cultural heritage and data sovereignty.
Traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine (TCIM) is defined by the WHO as the set of knowledge, skills, and practices based on indigenous theories, beliefs, and experiences of different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the care of health, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of physical or mental illnesses.
The global health agency is aware of the use of medicinal herbs, acupuncture, yoga, indigenous therapies, and other forms of traditional medicine in 170 countries, making these practices a global phenomenon with increasing demand from the population.
«Our Global Initiative on AI for Health aims to help all countries benefit from AI solutions and ensure they are safe, effective, and ethical,» explained Seizo Onoe, director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau of ITU.
The document highlights various uses of AI in the context of traditional medicine already taking place worldwide, including in diagnosis, personalized care, drug development, healthcare system management and planning, and preservation and promotion of traditional medicine knowledge.
Specifically, it includes examples such as the use of AI-based diagnostics in ayurgenomics, the combination of traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine with genomics, machine learning models that identify medicinal plants in countries like Ghana and South Africa, and the use of AI to analyze traditional medicine compounds to treat blood disorders in South Korea.
The global traditional and complementary medicine market is expected to reach nearly €513 million (US$600 billion) by 2025. In this context, the report emphasizes that AI could further accelerate its growth and impact on global health.
GAPS AND GAPS TO WORK ON
Despite the evident potential of AI in this field, the report underscores the need to develop regulatory frameworks, knowledge sharing, capacity building, data governance, and equity promotion to ensure the safe, ethical, and evidence-based integration of this new technology into traditional medicine.
In this sense, it urges countries to take measures to defend Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) and ensure that AI development is guided by the principles of free, prior, and informed consent. As examples, it presents data governance models led by the community in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, and calls on governments to adopt laws that empower indigenous peoples to control and benefit from their data.
«AI must not become a new frontier of exploitation,» asserted Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Systems, emphasizing the importance of ensuring not only the protection of indigenous peoples and local communities but their active participation in shaping the future of AI in traditional medicine.
To achieve this, the report calls on stakeholders to invest in inclusive AI ecosystems that respect cultural diversity and IDSov, develop national policies and legal frameworks that explicitly address AI in traditional medicine, enhance the capacity and digital literacy of traditional medicine professionals and communities, establish global standards for data quality, interoperability, and ethical use of AI, and safeguard traditional knowledge through AI-driven digital repositories and benefit-sharing models.