LookAtVietnam – Rare medicinal plants are under threat of becoming extinct despite efforts to preserve their genes and seedlings in recent years, according to health officials.

Scientists at the Medicine Institute are trying to grow rare medicinal plants.

Among the plants under threat are araliaceous bark, rhubarb and codonopsis, which were all once abundant but are now listed in the ‘red book’ of endangered species.

Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said the plants were under threat due to excessive exploitation and little effort by authorities to protect and replant medicinal plants.

Health experts have also warned that the threat to the medicinal plants puts the nation’s herbal medicine sector in danger of losing further market share to western medicine.

Deputy head of the Medicine Management Department Nguyen Van Thanh said only 2,040 out of more than 20,000 medicinal products which have been registered for sale in Viet Nam were of herbal origin.

While Viet Nam has been recognised as a country with valuable biological resources, particularly with a wealth of medicinal plants which play an important role in caring for people’s health, herbal medicines only contribute about 10 per cent of total drug production value.

Preserving, exploiting and developing herbal medicine have been recognised as a top priority. The issue was highlighted during a recent workshop reviewing 20 years of work on preserving gene sources and medicinal seedlings. The workshop, held earlier this month, was co-organised by the ministries of Health and Science and Technology.

“But this task has been implemented at a limited level,” said Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Quoc Thang at the workshop.

Deputy head of the Medicine Management Department, Nguyen Van Thanh said it was difficult to protect and control areas where medicinal herbs grew.

He said 53.5 per cent of herbal medicines were imported through small trade. In addition, a significant number of contraband medicines of low quality was available at local markets, said Thanh.

The herbal medicine sector also struggles to meet quality standards.

He said an example was imported astragalus, which had recently been discovered for sale in an impure and unsafe form. Such problems adversely impacted on the quality of herbal medicines, said Thanh.

The health ministry has asked pharmaceutical producers to guarantee the quality of their medicines. Yet only 78 out of 300 medicine producers have met the Government’s Good Manufacture Products standard.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News