Portuguese healthcare experts have called for broader international co-operation to deepen research into traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and other traditional practices, and to support their integration into health systems. They made the remarks on the sidelines of the 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Forum on Traditional Medicine, held recently in Nanchang, China.

Olga Maria Duarte Silva, President of the Co-operation Council of the Portuguese Pharmaceutical Society and Director of the China-Portugal International Joint Laboratory on Herbal Medicines, said that internationalising traditional medicine required greater involvement from European countries. The lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon also highlighted the need to improve knowledge transfer and mutual understanding between cultures.

Maria Beatriz da Silva Lima, former Director of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon, said that co-operation between China and Portugal encouraged the sharing of knowledge about plant matrices and could facilitate the entry of TCM into the European market. In her view, Chinese and European approaches to studying herbal extracts have similarities that could support the development of common procedures for extraction, substance identification and in vitro testing, with the use of artificial intelligence.

(Source: Brasil 247, 23 September)