According to a WHO report, more than 80% of the world’s population uses traditional medicine in 170 out of the 194 UN member states. With this background, WHO established the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre (GTMC) in Gujarat, India in April 2022. Then, in August 2023, the first WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit was held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. The Gujarat Declaration was issued as a summary of the summit. This was the first WHO-issued declaration specifically focused on traditional medicine. Based on the G20 vision of “One Earth, One Family, One Future,” a grand vision was presented to utilize the wisdom of traditional medicine for the sustainable society, including planetary health, against the global warming. Furthermore, it was emphasized that scientific evidence for traditional medicine, including indigenous medicine, should be promoted. Following this, several projects have been launched.

Traditional East Asian medicines, Kampo included, are to be incorporated into International Classification of Diseases11 (ICD-11) which will be released in2015.To understand the significance of this plan, ICD itself needs to be understood. In this article, we describe ICD history, its significance and problems, and why the WHO became interested in traditional medicine. In the beginning, the ICD was only for classifying causes of mortality, and has since expanded to cover disease information according to the diverse needs of a changing society. And in Japan today, it is widely used not only for death certificate and disease information, but also for research purposes. There are many problems with the ICD, however:e.g. it is not clinically convenient, and it lacks certain terminology. Revision from IDC-10 to ICD-11 is now ongoing. It will be expanded and electronic. At the same time, plans are to have it broadly implemented in Asia by including traditional East Asian medicine.