Kenya is working to bring traditional, complementary, and integrative medicines based on solid evidence into their national health services by the year 2028.
Speaking during the 2026 African Traditional Medicine Day celebrations at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Nairobi, Duale said traditional medicine presents significant opportunities for research, innovation and development of locally produced health products.
The traditional medicine represents a great chance not only to conduct more studies on it but also for innovation and, creation of affordable medicines.
At that same event in Nairobi, Adetunji Ayorinde, the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), stated that countries across the WHO African Region had reported using traditional medicine in heir health system.
“These countries had developed legal provisions training licensing of practitioners and the regulation of traditional medicine,” he said.
In a speech at that function, the Health Cabinet Secretary, announced that the Health Ministry is working hard on the policy document called ‘National Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine. ‘ This will eventually lay a path for the regulation of this segment, which will include, licensing the practitioners, quality assurance, and so on
Duale noted that health system based on indigenous knowledge, said that this policy will also serve to make the quality and safety checks on the traditional medicines stronger.
According to Duale, it will only be approved after the policy has been validated through a consultation process with all the concerned stakeholder groups and then made available to the public to comment on it nationwide.
Duale urged members of different sectors including government, the researchers, medical professionals, the regulators, the universities, the industry and the communities to colaborate if they really need traditional medicine to come of age quickly and be accepted as the valid form of health care on all levels.
In addition, he said the government is introducing a system for a full circle of the medicine chain, from dispensing to the patient, to enhance so patient safety.
