JEDDAH, 16 May 2008 — In spite of advertisements about herbal and natural cures for health problems being common on Arabic television, alternative medicine is not yet recognized in the GCC states.

In a meeting of the Council of GCC Health Ministers in Riyadh last month, the Kuwaiti minister said alternative medicine should be recognized in the region. He added that a Kuwaiti committee was working on legalizing alternative medicine in the country and that all efforts have been unsuccessful since 1997.

He also said that the Kuwaiti government has suggested enacting of a new law on the subject.

On its part, the Kingdom said it would not make a decision on the matter until it had exhaustively studied the issue.

Alternative medicine is a topic that will be discussed by GCC health ministers at their conference in Geneva on May 21. The agenda of the upcoming conference includes primary health care, the pricing of medicine, emergency medicine, and oral health. The theme of the conference will be “Primary Health Care and Family Medicine are Strategic Aims.”

Dr. Tawfik Khoja, director general of the council’s executive board, said that the health ministers would also discuss the quality of health care and safety. The initiative is a worldwide one started by the World Health Organization under the title of the 2nd Global Patient Safety Challenge.

Breast Cancer Campaign

A campaign to raise breast cancer awareness among women will kick off today at the Jeddah Intercontinental Hotel. The campaign, entitled “Two Minutes of your Time Saved My Life,” will urge women to undergo an annual breast check.

More than 300 specialized doctors from Saudi Arabia and international speakers will attend the campaign that is organized by the Saudi Society for Obstetric and Gynecology in cooperation with Roche.