The Brazilian government has established a working group to prepare a proposal to integrate indigenous medicine into Brazil's national health system that provides care for indigenous people, according to a decree published today in the Official Journal of the Federation.
The decree indicates that the Ministry of Health “establishes the Working Group on Indigenous Medicines, within the scope of the Indigenous Health Secretariat, to prepare a program proposal on indigenous medicines in the indigenous health care subsystem.”
The group, of an advisory nature, will be composed of technical representatives from different fields “for the purpose of preparing a proposal for the establishment of a program in indigenous medicine.”
Created in 2021, the Secretariat of Indigenous Health (SESAI) serves more than 700,000 indigenous people in Brazil, through the epidemiological, social and cultural characteristics of these peoples.
Indigenous movements are demanding official recognition of these types of medicines, which they have used for thousands of years and which are still active in various Brazilian territories.
The group, which is initially supposed to complete its work within a year, will also be able to rely on the cooperation of experts, NGOs and governments from other countries to prepare the proposal for the local medicines programme.
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