Kolkata:  Switzerland will have Ayurveda practitioners by 2019, an official of the Indo-Swiss Ayurveda Foundation said here on Thursday.

The Swiss government in 2015 recognised and sanctioned Ayurveda medicine and therapy, making it the first Western country to do so.

The Indo-Swiss Ayurveda Foundation (ISA) has given the Swiss authorities a list of 450 formulations which are being included in the curriculum for the examinations which will be for  heldmedical practitioners in Switzerland.

“There are two ways in which Switzerland is going about it: approval of medical practitioners and the medicines that can be sold. For approval of doctors, exams have to be held, and for that a curriculum is needed and in the syllabus there has to be medicines of which they will make inquiries,” ISA Vice President Dilip Sinha said at the Seventh World Ayurveda Congress here.

To appear for the examinations, trained candidates would be needed and the coaching is currently in progress in Coimbatore.

“In 2018, the first batch will pass out and, after an internship, they can start practicing from 2019. They will have to take an exam and clear it, prepared and held by the Swiss government, after which they can start practicing as an independent medical practitioners in the country,” Sinha explained.

So, Switzerland will have Ayurveda practitioners by 2019, he said.

“Once this happens and they start practicing, we’re hoping that we will get our medicines registered,” he added.

To ensure training of doctors and availability of medicines work in tandem, efforts are on to promote more generic Ayurvedic formulations from India in the European nation.

“Switzerland already has some medicines… proprietary medicines are being sold from India.

Now we are trying to promote more generic medicines coming out of India in Switzerland,” Sinha added.

 

(source: Economic Times)