Amir Houman Kazemi, Advisor for International Affairs at the Faculty of Traditional Medicine in the Ministry of Health, said a group of students from Austria will come to study in Iran following an agreement reached in a joint meeting between Tehran University of Medical Sciences and traditional medicine experts in Austria.
Noting the expansion of educational cooperation between Iran and European countries in an effort to universalize Iranian medicine, Kazemi added “in the past few months, we held joint meetings with traditional medicine experts from China, South Korea, Spain and Austria.”
“We will have transfer programs with traditional medicine professors of Austria and Spain in the next few months,” Kazemi said, adding “we have also launched a round of cooperation with the academies of traditional medicine in China and South Korea.”
Kazemi went on to add, “soon there will be further cooperation with regional countries such as Tajikistan, Iraq and Afghanistan, which have more cultural commonalities with Iran.”
“Certain topics such as Avicenna’s principles of traditional medicine, indigenous herbal medicines, as well as the ability of Iranian medicine in correcting nutrition and lifestyle of the world hold special attractiveness for other countries,” he said.
In February, two Iranian traditional medicine workshops were held in Austria for the first time with the aim to introduce traditional medicine to western physicians and pharmacists as well as Iranian resident physicians.
In Iran, more than 80% of traditional medicine contents are herbal and less than 20% are in animal and mineral forms. There are currently 20 official traditional medicine centers in Iranian universities of medical sciences which are regulated by the Health Ministry.
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