Global digital library on Traditional Medicine: Advancing evidence-informed global health

The world is witnessing the evolution of the global landscape of Traditional Medicines (TMs), with evidence of a major proportion of the population across the globe relying on TM for health and well-being purposes. TM has been serving as a cornerstone of healthcare for centuries, contributing significantly to health promotion, disease prevention, and therapeutic care across cultures and nations. The significance of TM in Universal Health Coverage has long been acknowledged by international accords, ranging from the Declaration of Alma-Ata (1978) and Astana (2018) to United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 74/2 (2019) and 78/4 (2023), and the very recent agreement of the Member States to accept the new World Health Organization (WHO) Global TM Strategy 2025-2034 for the advancement of evidence-based practice of Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine (TCIM) in the coming ten years during the 8th World Health Assembly, 2025.[1] The new global strategy “WHO Global TM strategy 2025–2034” outlines several strategic objectives, each supported by specific directions such as promoting high-quality research, harnessing technological innovations, establishing robust regulatory mechanisms for products, practices, and practitioners, and ensuring integration of TM into health systems across the care continuum and life course. It also emphasizes cross-sectoral policies and action plans aimed at safeguarding traditional medicinal knowledge while ensuring equitable access and benefit-sharing.[2] The goal of the WHO ongoing initiatives and its Member States is to encourage countries to search for more innovative approaches of integrating safe, evidence-based TM into health systems globally. WHO has recently conducted a third global survey to gather information and data from WHO Member States on a range of topics, including governance of TCIM health services, facilities, workforce, and products, among others, and launched the WHO global report on TCIM, 2024.[3] The report has documented that 90 Member States have national policy laws or regulations for TCIM at the national or state level. Further, the Member States reported that around 60–90% of their populations use TCIM for healthcare needs, as per their statistical estimation. Moreover, 100 Member States have a national office, and 76 have a national expert committee for TCIM.[3] Based on the insights of this global survey, WHO launched the first-ever WHO TCIM Dashboards on May 21, 2025, featuring comprehensive global and country-level profiles. These dashboards deliver detailed worldwide and country-specific profiles, covering national policies and regulations, prompt updates on TCIM progress, and improved data access for decision-makers, healthcare providers, and researchers.[4] In addition, the WHO has formed a Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on TCIM (STAG-TM) with 19 independent experts to advise the WHO on global TM strategy. This group will provide technical assistance for establishing norms and standards, scientific guidance for setting research priorities, and recommendations on integrative strategies for TM into health systems, besides assisting in articulating policy options for Member States.[5] The group convened its initial session on December 17, 2025, in New Delhi at the second WHO Global TM Summit, prioritizing areas such as evidence generation, preservation of traditional knowledge, digital innovation, and capacity building. The WHO Global Summit emphasized action over discussion by launching the TM Global Library (TMGL), a pioneering digital platform that aggregates 1.6 million resources on TM, encompassing traditional knowledge to scientific studies.[6] WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION TRADITIONAL MEDICINE GLOBAL LIBRARY – KEY FEATURES The platform integrates more than 1.6 million documents, including evidence maps, journals, multimedia collections, policies, and regulations. In addition, it has created 194 country-specific pages with important information and research statistics. The portal has advanced tools like Evidence Gap Maps and the Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven TMGL GPT to enhance access to reliable information and speed up global research efforts. The WHO TMGL portal organizes documented knowledge across its eight key dimensions, including health and well-being, leadership and policies, research and evidence, health systems and services, digital health frontiers, biodiversity and sustainability, right, equity and ethics, and TM for daily life. These dimensions encompass a wide array of knowledge resources such as scientific publications, evidence maps, and policy documents. These dimensions cover sustainability and biodiversity, rights, equity and ethics, as well as TMs for everyday life. This framework, inspired by the Gujarat Declaration, enables users to access context-specific content through global, regional, and country portals. The portal also integrates into Hinari via the Research4Life platform, granting free or low-cost access to peer-reviewed biomedical literature for institutions in low- and middle-income countries, thus broadening the reach of TM resources.[7] This initiative represents a transformative effort to systematically document, validate, and disseminate global TM knowledge through a credible, accessible, and standardized digital platform. It is worth mentioning here that as per the WHO global report on TCIM 2024, the most common challenges reported by the Member States include insufficient research data, inadequate safety monitoring, and a lack of oversight or regulation of TCIM providers. The report also highlighted top priorities such as technical guidance on researching TCIM safety, quality, and efficacy; workshops on incorporating TCIM into primary health care; and access to a dedicated research database. The launch of TMGL under a unified digital framework addresses the long-standing challenges related to fragmentation, lack of research data, lack of accessibility, and variability in documentation standards. The digital nature of the library enhances its global reach and inclusivity. Researchers, educators, healthcare professionals, and policymakers across low-, middle-, and high-income countries can access authoritative resources without geographical or institutional barriers. INCLUSION OF JOURNAL OF AYURVEDA CASE REPORTS IN GLOBAL LIBRARY PORTAL A comprehensive collection of scholarly publications on TCIM is available in the WHO TMGL. These journals promote research, knowledge sharing, and evidence-based treatment in a variety of modalities, including naturopathy, homeopathy, and herbal medicine, along with the inclusion of various multidisciplinary studies integrating traditional and biomedical systems. It is worth mentioning here that Journal of Ayurveda Case Reports (JACR) has been included under its collection of scholarly journals, which will certainly showcase the clinical insights into Ayurvedic practices on the global platform through its peer-reviewed clinical case studies that document real-world applications of Ayurveda treatments, linking time-tested practices with rigorous scientific validation. Moreover, another journal of the All India Institute of Ayurveda, the International Journal of Ayurveda Research (IJAR), has also been included under the TMGL scholarly journals. Besides being honored to be a part of this global initiative, there comes huge responsibility of upholding global data standards, ensuring ethical knowledge sharing, and protecting indigenous sources amid expanded visibility through the digital platform. This inclusion opens avenues for wider collaborations, AI-enhanced research via TMGL tools, and contributions to safety protocols, accelerating TM’s integration into universal health systems worldwide. JACR pledges to continue delivering top-quality case reports while maintaining the highest documentation standards, helping ensure the WHO TMGL remains credible, inclusive, and impactful for researchers and policymakers. JACR is committed to focus on rigorous peer review, ethical reporting of clinical outcomes, and detailed methodologies that align with global evidence standards. By documenting knowledge responsibly and collaboratively, JACR will maintain its contribution in the protection of traditional knowledge while fostering innovation and cross-disciplinary research. As the WHO TMGL continues to grow and develop, JACR’s vital role within it demands continuous active involvement of researchers, clinicians, and academic institutions to contribute documented evidence through case reports and case series, to strengthen and elevate traditional knowledge on this scholarly worldwide platform. This evolution calls for sustained submissions of high-quality, clinical documentation that fill evidence gaps, thereby supporting global standards. Such contributions of JACR will drive TMGL’s impact, fostering innovation, research, ethical knowledge preservation, and seamless integration into global healthcare systems.