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Providing access to safe and affordable treatment is a major Global challenge faced by all nations. In South Asia, more than 80% of people rely on herbal remedies and traditional medicine based on the use of plants. Plants yield ingredients for some of the most advanced medications available today, and also yield remedies that have been used by indigenous communities for centuries. However, information about both these applications is not widespread, and the very communities that survive on harvesting medicinal plants are unable to do so in a sustainable manner. The National Medicinal Plant Board aims to augment the efforts of communities to conserve and harvest plants in a sustainable manner, and bring the benefits of this knowledge to the world at large.
Toxic drugs are now increasingly considered unwelcome, and research is being focused on providing safer and more affordable alternatives. In this context, documenting, saving and using the indigenous medical heritage of the South Asian region is very relevant. However, despite the fact that traditional medical systems have been used for centuries, the knowledge about them is restricted, and modern research methods have not been applied systematically to verify the application in the development of drugs.
The NMPB Portal is an attempt to collect under one umbrella the entire knowledge base on plants and herbs after appropriate verification and empirical validation of all available therapeutic knowledge of the flora in India. This is being done by the collaborative efforts of some pf the leading Indian Institutions and private and public stake holders. NMPB has over several open houses events studies and meeting with diverse groups of persons and organisations has been able to create this repository which is an ongoing exercise adding new information both scientific, and commercial. In addition, integration and reorientation of some existing databases to bring them under the umbrella of the common portal for easy one point access to this repository of knowledge.
This Portal envisages the dissemination of knowledge in creating sustainable cultivation, collection, packaging and distribution methods to ensure that active ingredients are retained at their optimum yields.
At the same time ensuring that communities involved in the cultivation, procurement and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) get their true value in return.
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