Digitizing knowledge of traditional medicine and pharmacy.

Vietnam possesses abundant medicinal plant resources, along with many unique experiences in using medicinal plants and remedies for disease prevention and treatment among its various ethnic communities.

Students visit the Vietnam Medicinal Plants Museum. (Photo: NHAN DAN NEWSPAPER)

Over the years, research institutions and many localities have implemented a series of projects and programs on medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge, especially in ethnic minority and mountainous regions. A vast amount of data has been collected, ranging from lists of medicinal plants, remedies, and usage methods, to information on distribution areas, healing practices, and the generational experience of traditional healers.

However, the current drawback is that the data is fragmented and lacks interconnection, limiting its exploitation for long-term goals.

In reality, each topic, each program, and each locality develops its own set of survey questionnaires, its own recording methods, and its own classification system. For example, the same plant species may have many different names, be described with varying levels of detail, or even be understood as different objects in different databases. This makes data aggregation, comparison, and interoperability difficult.

Many studies remain focused on record-keeping rather than building a living data source that can be continuously analyzed, updated, and utilized. Therefore, when a project ends, the data is almost "frozen" in reports, books, or other private storage media, with little chance of connecting with other studies later. A researcher in medicinal plants stated that data in books has already been summarized, analyzed, and processed, while valuable data—the researcher's personal notes—is personal, not centrally managed, easily lost, and very wasteful.

The consequence of this situation is that it is difficult to identify the major patterns in the use of medicinal plants and remedies for conservation and development purposes, such as which plant species are used by many ethnic groups, which disease groups are most commonly treated, which plant species harvested from nature are most frequently used, or where medicinal plant cultivation areas linked to indigenous knowledge can be developed?... These significant questions are beyond the capacity of individual research projects to answer.

Recently, a research team from Hanoi University of Pharmacy collected and digitized medicinal plants and remedies used by ethnic minorities in the northern mountainous region as part of a national target program. The project's objective was not only to document the list of medicinal plants and remedies but also to digitize the knowledge, building a framework for future research and management. As a result, significant findings have been made for the conservation and development of medicinal plants, such as: the main parts used are leaves, stems, roots, and bark; common treatment groups include musculoskeletal, digestive, skin, kidney-urinary, and trauma-related diseases; and the fact that most traditional healers proactively cultivate wild medicinal plants in their home gardens.

The data also warns of the risk of the erosion of traditional folk medicine knowledge, such as the average number of generations practicing medicine being only two to three, a low rate of apprenticeship; most remedies have not been registered or extensively researched, and have not been developed into products. According to experts, this is a risk of knowledge loss if timely solutions are not implemented.

In Directive No. 25/CT-TTg (September 15, 2025) on promoting the development of Vietnamese traditional medicine in the new period, the Prime Minister requested a focus on digitizing valuable documents and materials on traditional medicine, building a national database on medicinal plant regions, medicinal herbs, medicinal plants, prescriptions, exemplary practitioners, and scientific works to facilitate preservation and retrieval.

Based on practical experience and the requirements of the aforementioned directive, the issue is to apply science and technology to transform research into lasting shared value. Accordingly, a national coordinating agency is needed to promptly digitize knowledge of medicinal plants and remedies nationwide. This aims to systematically preserve this valuable knowledge source and build a shared data system to effectively serve research, training, and management.

There is a need for a national coordinating agency to promptly digitize knowledge of medicinal plants and remedies nationwide in order to systematically preserve this valuable knowledge source, and at the same time build a shared data system to effectively serve research, training, and management.

Experts also believe that when the data is large enough, the application of artificial intelligence will open up possibilities for in-depth analysis and automated data processing, allowing for the discovery of new research directions. This database is also an important tool for management agencies to monitor the current state of medicinal plant exploitation, assess the risk of genetic resource depletion, and supervise the effective use of traditional medicine knowledge. For local people, it will provide a more scientific basis for the conservation and development of medicinal plants linked to sustainable livelihoods.

HA LINH

Source: https://nhandan.vn/so-hoa-tri-thuc-y-duoc-co-truyen-post936352.html