U Maung Nyan chooses the ingredients for a traditional cure.

IN the past decade traditional medicine has re-emerged in Myanmar as a popular alternative to western health care methods.

Passed from one ancient dynasty to the next since time immemorial, knowledge of traditional medicine was eventually discouraged when the region came under colonial rule in the 1880s. Although its use gradually declined with the introduction of western medicine, many traditional physicians preserved the practice and passed it on the later generations.

One such physician, U Maung Nyan, who is also a member of the Myanmar Traditional Medicine Council, said he has spent more than two-thirds of his life studying traditional medicine.

“When I was two years old my mother died from diarrhoea because she could not reach any medical facilities. Then when I was 20, just before the Second World War, a lot of people were suffering from diseases that caused diarrhoea, so I decided to study traditional medicine,” he said.

With western medicine often in short supply during the war, many people had to rely on traditional methods of curing diseases and thus came to realise its efficacy.

U Maung Nyan said he studied ayurveda (the basic concepts of Myanmar traditional medicine) at Eden University in India in 1959 but had to come back after three months.

“I have been using herbal medicines to treat patients for nearly 50 years, but it has become more popular in the past 10 years and now plays an important role in public health care services,” he said.

Traditional medicine as it is currently practiced in Myanmar has four components: desana, bethitzza, astrology and vezzadara.

Desana is based on natural phenomena such as heat and coldness. Its concepts largely depend on Buddhist philosophy, and it focuses on diet and the therapeutic use of herbal and mineral compounds.

Bethitzza originally came from India and is based on the extensive use of herbal and mineral compounds to establish balance among the three dosas, or energies, of the body – namely vata, pitta and kapha.

The astrological system uses calculations of the zodiac of the stars, the planets and the patient’s time of birth and age. These calculations are linked to prescribed dietary practices.

Vezzadara largely depends on meditation, and on alchemical practices in the preparation of drugs derived from heavy metals such as lead and mercury.

“According to my experiences, rural people (85 per cent of the population) rely on traditional medicine more than urbanites do, maybe because it is more affordable and more culturally accepted, and because many western medicines are unavailable in rural areas,” said U Maung Nyan.

He said the fact that he now has more business than ever before shows that more people are not only using traditional medicine but also believing in the treatments.

“Some come to me after western medicine failed to cure them,” he said.

U Maung Nyan stressed the importance of using scientific methods in the production of traditional medicines to ensure that they are of high standard.

In 1996 the Ministry of Health enacted a law aimed at guaranteeing the safety of drugs that are based on traditional medicine by putting in place an improved registration system and requiring detailed research on drugs before they are approved for use.

In 2001 the ministry also established a school where students can study traditional medicine on the university level.

Most traditional practitioners now use a combination of traditional medicines and western equipment to treat their patients.

Dr Khin Maung Lwin, the managing director of Fame Pharmaceuticals, said traditional medicine is now in very high demand in Myanmar.

He said that advertising, effective packaging and modern production techniques have all contributed to the increasing popularity of traditional medicine.

Above all, people trust that the medicines are safe to use because the industry has significantly improved research and production techniques in recent years, he said.

Fame is the first private-sector pharmaceutical factory in Myanmar whose production methods meet the stringent Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). It has also earned ISO 9001:2000 certification for its quality management system.

The company produces 45 different kinds of traditional medicines, and its products have been exported to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany and Japan.

U Maung Maung Oo, the owner of the Great Wall Pharmaceutical Company, said that in today’s information age people will not accept traditional medicines if their safety cannot be proven using scientific methods.

“In the past such medicines were used by poor and uneducated people because they were cheap, but many others didn’t use them because there were no good manufacturing practices in place so they thought the drugs were unsafe to use,” he said.

He said that better manufacturing practices have made traditional medicines more popular with people from all walks of life.

“Now the traditional market is successful because we have gained the trust of consumers,” said U Maung Maung Oo.

“The role of traditional medicine was also boosted in 2000 when the government organised a traditional medicine exhibition in Myanmar, which allowed us, the producers, to have direct contact with consumers and show them that we had developed modern methods like new production techniques,” he said.

U Maung Maung Oo said that when he got into the business in 1986 the company used manual labor to produce drugs.

“Now most traditional medicine producers are using pharmaceutical machinery, which makes the drugs safer,” he said.

“Investment in production techniques and research has increased as the sales have gone up,” he said.