Around 7 million consultations and treatments using traditional medicine were recorded across Vietnam in 2025, according to the Vietnam Association of Traditional Medicine.
The figure was announced by Dau Xuan Canh, president of the association, during a ceremony marking the organisation's 80th anniversary in Hanoi on August 20.
Canh said the association had spent eight decades bringing together generations of physicians, herbalists and practitioners, helping preserve and promote Vietnam's traditional medical knowledge.
The organisation now has nearly 70,000 members nationwide and operates a network of more than 10,000 traditional medicine clinics and treatment centres.
Speaking at the event, Vu Manh Ha, permanent deputy minister of health, said Vietnam's rapidly ageing population and the increasing prevalence of chronic and non-communicable diseases were driving greater demand for rehabilitation services, long-term care and home-based healthcare.
Deputy Health Minister Vu Manh Ha congratulates the Vietnam Traditional Medicine Association (Photo: Organising committee).
“This presents both challenges and opportunities for traditional medicine to demonstrate its strengths in disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and comprehensive healthcare,” Ha said.
He added that the future development of traditional medicine should go beyond preserving existing values and instead embrace modern thinking and methods.
“Valuable remedies, treatment methods, medicinal resources and indigenous knowledge should be researched, verified, standardised and applied in practice on the basis of science, safety and effectiveness,” he said.
Traditional and modern medicine are combined in treatment (Photo: Hong Hai).
According to Canh, traditional medicine is playing an increasingly important role in healthcare services across the country.
Health insurance currently covers 229 traditional herbal medicines and medicines derived from medicinal ingredients, as well as 349 traditional medicinal substances.
Looking ahead, the association aims to move beyond managing a specialised professional field and instead develop a national traditional medicine ecosystem.
The proposed ecosystem would connect healthcare practitioners with patients, traditional knowledge with modern science, medicinal herb-growing regions with processing industries, and healthcare services with education, research and wellness tourism.
Traditional medicinal ingredients in Vietnam (Photo: Hong Hai).
Canh said valuable remedies, treatment methods and indigenous knowledge should be catalogued, digitised, researched, standardised and protected, while evidence-based integration between traditional and modern medicine should be expanded.
He also called for the development of the medicinal herb sector through a value-chain approach, including certified cultivation areas, product traceability, advanced processing, brand building and gradual expansion into international markets.
