India teams up with Taiwan's NRICM; donates Rs 15 lakh for Chinese medicine research

In order to extend aid in traditional medicine, India on Saturday donated Rs 1.5 million (NTD 570,000) to the National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine (NRICM). The development comes years after Taiwan's representative office in the South Asian nation has promoted exchanges involving traditional medicine sectors of the two sides.

India's Ayush Information Cell is already at the task of providing information on traditional Indian medicine and managing exchanges with the Chinese medicine community in Taiwan.  "It was the first time that the Indian government made a donation to a Taiwanese government institution as the NRICM resorts under the Ministry of Health and Welfare," Taiwan media was quoted by ANI.

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India has been ramping up its efforts to help Covid hit countries across the world by sending vaccines as grants. Recently, India's Deputy Representative to the UN K Naraj Naidu said that the third batch of vaccines will soon be dispatched to Palestine. He acknowledged that the state of medical infrastructure in war-torn Palestine is 'fragile', and India would extend all help to help it combat the pandemic. As such, India's vaccine help has gone out to approximately 60 nations, either directly through humanitarian aid, goodwill gestures and commercial deals, or indirectly via the COVAX alliance via which it is also to benefit nations who for some reason or the other aren't keen on being seen to be relying on India, such as Pakistan.

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Meanwhile, the Ministry of Ayush and the South East Regional Office of WHO recently signed a letter of exchange (LoE) for 'the secondment or deputation of an Ayush expert to WHO's regional traditional medicine program in New Delhi.' 

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