Siddha, a traditional Indian system of medicine unique to India, is more than
4000 ... groups mainly depend on Siddha medicine because of its affordability
and ...
Revitalization of Indigenous Siddha Health System “SIDDHA” for Prevention, Care and Management of Life Threatening Diseases in Tamil Nadu, India Context Siddha, a traditional Indian system of medicine unique to India, is more than 4000 years old. Siddha system had been used by millions of people in the southern parts of India especially in Tamil Nadu. The rural mass and those who believe in traditional system of medicine follow the Siddha systems to cure their disease and ailments. The low-income groups mainly depend on Siddha medicine because of its affordability and availability of medicine as well as healers in their area itself. Government of Tamil Nadu in India is running two medical colleges in siddha medical system. The certified siddha medical practitioners are proportionately very fewer when comparing with the allopathic physicians. Apart from the countable siddha physicians trained by government siddha medical colleges, there are more than 40,000 traditional healers in the rural areas of Tamil Nadu who had acquired traditional knowledge from their fathers, forefathers and Guru - a person who gives training and education. Most cases, these practitioners are specialized in certain medicine and confined to a territory. This traditional knowledge of Siddha medicine is transferred from one generation to another generation. However, this transformation is weakened in many families due to various reasons. This trend resulted in the loss of knowledge that had been developed and practiced since several centuries. At present there is no coordinated effort to preserve this ancient Indian knowledge System. There is an immense need to preserve this system of medicine through proper documentation of traditional knowledge, orientation and training to traditional healers, conservation of medicinal plants and scientific understanding of its function, developing research protocols to understand the functions of active principles in the ingredients, improving technical expertise in the quality of raw drugs used and processed and manufactured as Siddha drugs. In recent years, there is a renewed interest in Indian systems of medicine particularly Siddha for major disease like tumor, melanoma, sarcoma, diabetes, hepatitis, cysts, fibroids, liver cirrhosis, arthritis, tuberculosis, pneumonia, syphilis, gonorrhea, dermatological disease and AIDS because of its efficacy and affordability to common man. In this context, GANDEEPAM has proposed to set-up a Centre for Excellence in Siddha that will preserve this ancient system of medicine and increase the usage of this system for the treatment of life threatening diseases that kills millions of people every year around the world.
Rationale •
The time tested traditional Siddha health system is a part of our Indian medical heritage is now more threatened and vulnerable. The rich biodiversity associated with the Siddha system also rapidly vanishes as invaluable knowledge erodes from the memory of the traditional practitioners. The large scale landscape changes are also key reason for accelerating this phenomenon. Hence, identifying traditional healers, documenting their knowledge of practitioners, preserving natural resources are prime concerns.
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Allopathic medicine based treatment is often costly, not affordable to the rural communities and considered scary. Immediate availability of the service of allopathic physicians in the rural area is also become more critical. Higher dependence on the allopathic systems is not economically viable for villagers particularly for the marginalized communities.
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The world is aware that the Indian Siddha systems have got a comprehensive solution for all health needs. But the standardization of protocols of the siddha medicines with scientific acumen is imperative for production of quality medicine that would attend the health need of the communities.
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The Gandeepam network model elaborated in this proposal would ensure standardization of siddha medicine system with the affordable cost and immediate access to the common.
Milieu of GANDEEPAM: GANDEEPAM is a Non Government Charitable Society registered under Tamil Nadu Societies Act (1975) in the year 1991. This NGO is located in Kilavayal, Sivagangai district, Tamil Nadu, South India. Gandeepam has been working for Revitalization of Siddha System of Medicine to provide cost effective health care services to the rural communities and aspire to promote their livelihoods in Tamil Nadu, India. Over a period of unswerving efforts and uninterrupted research to promote autonomy in local health traditions has encouraged Gandeepam to explore the possibilities of using the native knowledge, skills and practices of the Siddha system of medicine for prevention, care and management of some of the chronic and dreadful life threatening disease like HIV / AIDS, Melanoma, Sarcoma, Diabetics, TB, Rheumatoid Arthritis etc. Since 2000, a team of Siddha physicians at Gendeepam hospital and research centre is functioning in the area of management of HIV / AIDS. As result of this successful experiment, Gandeepam has embarked upon itself with the tasks of extending its Siddha treatments to benefit the hot spots of HIV / AIDS populations at Viralimalai, Namakkal, Thuvarankurichi and Ponnamaravathi in Tamil Nadu. Gandeepam has 50 bedded hospitals cum research centre at Kizhavayal and four extension outpatient clinics at Ponnamaravathi, Thuvarangkuruchi, Viralimalai and Namakkal. These facilities caters in an average of 10 inpatients regularly a day and 155 out patients per day Since 2000 it has treated 1040 HIV patients from the five centers. Besides, GADEEPAM has organized two International meeting in 2002 and 2003. In both the meets, delegates from all over the world had participated. Among the foreign delegates, the French delegate Mr. Gerard Bailly, International Administrator, Gandeepam Global Foundation, Paris, Honorable French Senator Mr. Michel Guerry and Dr.Gerry Bodeker, Chair Person, GIFTS, Oxford university, UK., Dr.Luo Song, Chengudu University, China, Dr. Sophie Jakowska, Dominican Republic were attended.
Honorable Chairman of Gandeepam Dr.M.A.Parthasarathy and Honorable Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu Mr. Dhalawai Sundaram,Honorable Dig Vijay Singh, State Minister for External affairs, Government of India also were notable participants. This project proposal has emerged due to the recommendations of the participants in the First International Siddha Congress (2002) and International Meet on Prevention, Care and Control of HIV / AIDS under time tested Indian Medical system Siddha (2003). GANDEEPAM presently propose to revitalize the Indigenous Siddha health systems though a systematic study on the clinical aspects of the treatment and management of life threatening diseases based on cross-cultural understanding in order to inform the international scientific community about the contemporary relevance of Siddha system of medicines. In this process, the project would provide opportunity for the involvement of various stakeholders in network model to take part in the Prevention, Care and Management of Life Threatening diseases based on traditional Siddha medicine in Tamil Nadu, India. Project objectives: The five thematic areas of the project are intended with the following objectives to: I.
Conservation, documentation and promotion of Siddha medicinal heritage Conserve and promote medicinal plants, animals and other natural minerals used in Siddha health system through various stakeholder participation Preserve the codified knowledge from the literature and non-codified folk traditional medical knowledge of Siddha
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Documentation and Research: Document traditional knowledge, Research on life threatening diseases and siddha health care solutions Research on the formulations and efficacy of various Siddha drugs Standardize quality of siddha medicines made by siddha practitioners, traditional Healers and small scale siddha drug manufacturers Evaluate safety and efficacy siddha medicines using traditional as well as modern scientific tools Evolve standard research protocols for Pre-clinical and Clinical Research in Siddha system of medicine
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Capacity Building and Networking Provide training and capacity building for NGOs, siddha practitioners (Graduate and Traditional), small-scale siddha drug manufacturers, Farmers and SHGs for conservation and promotion of medicinal plants.
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Health Care Out Reach Services Provide low-cost treatment for life threatening diseases through establishment of appropriate institutions Provide training for local recruits of youths in yoga, Meditation, Varma and essential oil therapy Organize Green Health Movement on native health care through kitchen herbal gardens that lead by women
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Sustaining Siddha Knowledge Systems Develop Education, Training and Dissemination opportunities in Siddha health systems
Period of Implementation: Designed for 5 Yrs (60 Months) Geographical Area, Target Population and Network partners: The project will focus on the geographical areas where the life threatening diseases (LTDs) like HIV / AIDS, Melanoma, Sarcoma, Diabetics, TB, Rheumatoid, Arthritis are prevalent and also where environmentally and socially vulnerable population lives. In addition, the project also will extend the Siddha health support systems with the network in all districts in Tamil Nadu, India with the population of 65 millions. The NGOs, traditional Siddha medical practitioners, registered graduate doctors, community institutions and Markets would play a key role in this network. The project primarily covers the people of Tamil Nadu and also would open to patients from other parts of India and abroad eventually. The proposed project has a potential to start within Tamil Nadu to offer treatment for 5 million people which includes 25000 HIV/AIDS patients per year.
Protocol 1. Conservation, documentation and promotion of Siddha medicinal heritage •
Awareness on Siddha medicine and its curative properties over Life threatening diseases will be created through a serious of activities like street play, poster campaign, rally, public meeting, seminar, workshops, exhibitions, publications, counseling centers, demonstration trainings, media advertisement at local, regional, state level
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Series of efforts will be made to preserve the biodiversity through in-situ and ex-situ conservation programmes to prevent from the exploitation of the medicinal plants resources from the wild and conserve from the danger of depletion and even extinction of many medicinal plant species
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Seed Banks will be established as part of the conservation programme to conserve the traditional medicinal plants gene pool
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Herbarium, seeds, raw drugs (HSRD) Centers of the medicinal plants will be established for conservation and education
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Indiscriminate harvesting and collection of medicinal plants from the wild will be controlled through awareness generation. Collection of medicinal plants other than RET species will be regulated through people participation
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Tissue culture and improved cultivation technology will be developed for commercially important species and cultivation of medicinal plants
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Technologies for cultivation and post-harvest processing would be provided to the farmers and buy back arrangement will be organized
2. Research and Development: •
Efforts to ensure collection, cataloguing and document information from the traditional healers, rural practitioners and the families, Books on Siddha System, Copies of manuscripts preserved by traditional healers and Siddha physicians, scientific publications of herbal and Siddha medicine
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Complied information will be available in a user friendly format and available access at any time. This task will be done with the support of technically qualified persons at district levels
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A centralized database will be created and it will be updated by qualified personnel at regular periodical interval
3. Evaluation and Quality Standardization: •
Well equipped laboratory will be established with all the modern equipments and tools to standardize drugs used by traditional practitioners further larger scale production without compromising its quality
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Specific techniques will be developed to understand and analyze the bioactivity of the formulations
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Standardized preclinical and clinical research protocols will be developed to conduct the research and to standardize the Siddha drugs
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Standard procedures will be developed for chemical profiling of the plants used as well as the formulations prepared
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The Siddha drugs will be analyzed using Spectroscopy, Chromatography, AAS, PAGE and other modern tools and the quality of the drug will be assured
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Other physicochemical analyses such as moisture content, particle size, ash value, PH, alkaloid contents, heavy metal content and biological factors such as micro organism counts will be done at the laboratory
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The Siddha medicine prepared by the traditional healers, Siddha physicians, Small scale manufacturers, Siddha drug manufacturers and traditional healers can avail this facility to assure the quality of their drugs
4. Capacity Building and Networking •
The women Self Help Groups in the villages will be trained to grow/cultivate important medicinal plants. SHGs will be trained to process and convert in to value added products. These products supplied by the SHGs will be purchased by the RRCs/ ZRCs and forwarded to CES for drug preparation thus Siddha Knowledge Network Systems (Ref: Picture) promotes new livelihood opportunity at the villages.
5. Health Care Out Reach Services •
A centralized Siddha hospital will be established near Gandeepam in which the LTDs affected patients will be admitted and treated
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This hospital will have a Research Centre which will carry out the Research programmes on the efficacy of siddha drugs administered to the patients. The centralized hospital will be 200 bedded and 100 bedded emergency care units with all supporting medical facilities with the possibilities to increase the bed capacity in the coming years
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In addition to the centralized hospital four 100-bedded sub centers will be established in the geographical areas in Tamil Nadu where the HIV/AIDS are more prevalent
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Besides 45 ten bedded hospitals will be established in 45 places across the state to provide treatment for the patients at the accessible distance. This medical network will have totally 450 beds for inpatients and will cover 100 thousand inpatients and 3 million patients annually. The above mentioned sixty seven hospitals will annually cover 5 million patients in 5 years for common ailments and 25,000 HIV/AIDS patients.
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Production centre will be established with the backward and forward linkages of production of herbal products
6. Sustaining Siddha Knowledge Systems •
A Deemed University exclusively for Siddha System of Medicine and Research will be established.
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Hands on training will be given on safe handling of medicinal plants and follow GMP procedures for the persons directly involved in production of medicines
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Periodical training for Siddha drug manufacturers will be organized to persuade the importance of Quality in Siddha drugs.
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Library will be established with the collections of traditional Siddha literature, literature on medicinal plants, pharmacopoeia, current trends and treatments under Siddha medical system
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Web-service will be established with all relevant information on medicinal plants heritage of Tamil Nadu and its status, traditional medical Siddha practices, Siddha treatment Centre, Siddha drug, the Services of Centre for Excellency in Siddha, commercial demand of medicinal plants, cultivation and practices, on line experts opinion, Siddha education and related resources.
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This web-service will be useful to the millions of students, environmental activist, conservation biologists, scientists, traders, exporters, Siddha Practitioners and botanist in the world. This web-service will be updated at regular periodical interval by the expert committee of the Gandeepam.
Siddha Knowledge Network System The Centre for Excellence (CES) in Kandeepam will establish a Nodal centre for Siddha Knowledge Network System (SKNS). SKNS will function as catalyst for Documentation, Research, Treatment, Education, Training, marketing and Information dissemination on Siddha and will establish linkages with 4 Zonal Resource Centres (ZRCs) and 45 Regional Resource Centres (RRCs) through electronic networking system established across in Tamil Nadu. SKNS will act as a platform for the following networks constantly interact and share and develop innovation solutions from time to time. NGOs Network – Identify potential resource persons, Facilitate cultivation of herbs with the participation of the community and sharing the information and knowledge Traditional Healers Network – Special skilled persons would share, learn and contribute knowledge with others in the network Registered Graduate Doctors Network – Share the Medical advancement and contribute in the clinical evaluation Community Network - (Herbal gatherers groups, Women Self Help groups, Farmers clubs) as potential stakeholders in collection, cultivation and treatment Market network - Involves in the need assessments, assessment of resource availability, provide information on supply and demand. Chain of market actors will be involved from the local to global and also engaged in the sustainable market development
