Crisis de la medicina complementaria en épocas de la pandemia y alternativa indígena en el Perú: análisis de niveles de producción científica

Abstract

The 70% of the Peruvian economy is informal, despite the state effort to formalize it. The population that is part of this economy, faced with health care needs, turns to a traditional and informal health system, which should be the object of study by complementary and alternative medicine. Traditional and popular medicine, before COVID-19, has been denied from the state level, to the point of penalizing its flow during the pandemic, despite being based on the use of medicinal plants from the Amazon and the Andes, main source of the global pharmaceutical industry. Faced with the problem, the hypothesis of a deficit in the promotion of research in alternative and complementary and alternative medicine in universities and research centers arises.

Quantitative data on the level of use of traditional or popular medicine for research and production of knowledge in complementary and alternative medicine in Peruvian research centers and universities was explored, from global databases, and then a comparative analysis was carried out. with countries with similar cultural characteristics and university graduation levels.

The results are surprisingly low; Peruvian research does not reach 1% of research on the subject in countries with similar cultural and biological characteristics. In conclusion, the validity of the colonial model of universities and research centers does not value traditional, popular and indigenous medicine, the biological wealth and Andean and Amazonian culture is a potential source of research programs in indigenous alternative and complementary medicine. , the creation or transfer of universities and research centers to indigenous peoples with potential development of the phytotherapeutic industry would make it possible to value and thus contribute to the economic development and optimization of the national health system.