Cuba Strives to Introduce Chinese Medicine to L. America

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, July 03, 2002

Cuba Strives to Introduce Chinese Medicine to L. America

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Cuba looks set to introduce traditional Chinese medicines to the virtually virgin market of Latin America, after signing letters of intent with nine Chinese provinces and municipalities Tuesday in Beijing.

Under the agreement, provinces like Gansu, Shandong and Sichuan will cooperate with Cuba in such fields as technology for making medicines and the cultivation of medicinal plants.

A Cuban expert with the government's Natural and Traditional Medicine Program, Juana Irene said: "Though traditional Chinese medicine has been in Cuba for 150 years, Cuban hospitals and drugstores normally don't sell it because it hasn't formally entered the Cuban market."

Noting that traditional Chinese medicines are popular in Cuba, Juana Irene said that approximately one million Cubans annually tried acupuncture and Cuba bought traditional medicinal materials from China worth 500 million yuan (60 million U.S. dollars) each year.

The Cuban government encouraged Chinese experts to set up clinics and schools in Cuba, to introduce new herbal medicines and develop traditional Cuban medicine, and cooperate with Cubans in producing traditional medicine, Irene added.

Potentials for Chinese herbal medicine to enter L. America

Roberto Vandama, an expert with the Medical Survey and Development Center, said: "Latin American countries traditionally turn out herbal medicines, and there should be very good prospects for China and Latin American nations to cooperate in this field."

Cuba was an ideal stepping stone for traditional Chinese medicine to enter the Latin American markets, as a number of international and regional groups concerned with traditional medicine had bases in Cuba, he noted.

Bian Hongdeng, president of a Chinese investment corporation said he is confident in the Cuban market.

"Latin America with a population of over 400 million is a huge market for Chinese traditional medicine," Bian said.

Moreover, Cuban delegates to China said that they were deeply impressed by China's well-developed production system for traditional medicine.

Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Within Chinese Cosmology, all of creation is born from the marriage of two polar priciples, Yin and Yang: Earth and Heaven, winter and summer, night and day, cold and hot, wet and dry, inner and outer, body and mind. Harmony of this union means health, good weather, and good fortune, while disharmony leads to disease, disaster, and bad luck. The strategy of Chinese medicine is to restore harmony.

Each human is seen as a world in miniature, a garden in which doctor and patient together strive to cultivate health. Every person has a unique terrain to be mapped, a resilient yet sensitive ecology to be maintained. Like a gardener uses irrigation and compost to grow robust plants, the doctor uses acupuncture, herbs and food to recover and sustain health.

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