According to China Net, on September 7, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a press conference on the development of health and health undertakings since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Li Bin, deputy director of the National Health Commission, Qin Huaijin, deputy director of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the National Disease Chang Jile, deputy director of the Bureau of Prevention and Control, introduced the development achievements of health and health undertakings since the 18th National Congress. Qin Huai answered reporters' questions on the development of Chinese medicine in the past ten years, future development plans, and how Chinese medicine can better serve the grassroots.

Li Bin introduced that these ten years have been a decade of integrity, innovation, inheritance and development of Chinese medicine, so that more people can easily see Chinese medicine and use Chinese medicine with confidence. We will speed up the construction of a high-quality and efficient service system of traditional Chinese medicine, significantly improve the service capacity of traditional Chinese medicine at the grass-roots level, and make the service of traditional Chinese medicine more fair, accessible and convenient. To promote Chinese medicine to the world, Chinese medicine has spread to 196 countries and regions. In anti-epidemic research, Li Bin introduced that during the epidemic, the National Health Commission organized preclinical research on drugs, antibody screening, clinical trial channel opening and rapid approval, and promoted the successful listing of neutralizing antibodies, chemical drugs and traditional Chinese medicine.

Qin Huaijin introduced that the past ten years have been the best period for the development of Chinese medicine since the founding of New China. Chinese medicine is the material basis for the inheritance, innovation and development of Chinese medicine. Under the joint promotion of relevant departments, the industrial development of traditional Chinese medicine, the improvement of the quality of traditional Chinese medicine, and the technological innovation of traditional Chinese medicine have all shown a good development trend.

One is the rapid development of traditional Chinese medicine industry. Relying on national-level platforms such as the National Key Laboratory and the National Engineering Research Center, continue to deepen industry-university-research cooperation; the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly implement traditional Chinese medicine standardization projects to strengthen the quality control of the whole process of traditional Chinese medicine production; optimize and upgrade traditional Chinese medicine pharmaceutical equipment, Promote industrial intelligence and green development. At present, the industrial system based on traditional Chinese medicine agriculture, traditional Chinese medicine commerce as the link, and traditional Chinese medicine industry as the main body is becoming more and more perfect, and the industrial development trend is good. According to the statistics of the national pharmaceutical industry, the main income of the traditional Chinese medicine industry has increased from 515.6 billion yuan in 2012 to nearly 700 billion yuan in 2021.

Second, the quality of traditional Chinese medicine is constantly improving. The fourth national survey of traditional Chinese medicine resources has been completed, and the family background of traditional Chinese medicine resources has been found out; breakthroughs have been made in the research of wild varieties and substitutes of traditional Chinese medicine, the promotion of ecological planting has been accelerated, and the application scope of traditional Chinese medicine traceability system has been continuously expanded. Multiple departments have jointly issued documents such as the "National Plan for the Construction of Authentic Medicinal Materials Production Bases" and "Regulations for the Quality Management of Chinese Medicinal Materials Production" to jointly strengthen source management. According to the National Drug Sampling Annual Report of the State Drug Administration in 2021, the total qualified rate of Chinese herbal medicine sampling reached 98%.

Three is the deepening of scientific and technological innovation of traditional Chinese medicine. The State Administration of traditional Chinese Medicine, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other departments continue to increase investment in science and technology of traditional Chinese medicine, strengthen research on authentic medicinal materials, traditional Chinese medicine processing, quality assurance, and new drug research and development; actively cooperate with the State Food and Drug Administration to reform and improve the review and approval system of traditional Chinese medicine in line with the laws of traditional Chinese medicine, and establish a "three-in-one" review evidence system of traditional Chinese medicine theory, human experience and clinical trials.

In the next step, the State Administration of traditional Chinese Medicine will conscientiously implement the requirements of the 14th five-year Plan for the Development of traditional Chinese Medicine and the deployment of major projects for the revitalization and development of traditional Chinese medicine, and strengthen cooperation with relevant departments. around the whole process of planting, research and development, shoveling and use of traditional Chinese medicine, give full play to the leading role of scientific and technological support, promote the improvement of the quality of traditional Chinese medicine, deepen evidence-based research, better demonstrate the clinical value of traditional Chinese medicine, meet the people's needs.

Regarding how Chinese medicine can better serve the grassroots, Qin Huaijin said that Chinese medicine services are deeply welcomed by the grassroots because of their "simple and clean" characteristics. In recent years, the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine has taken strengthening the capacity building of grassroots Chinese medicine services as the top priority, continued to promote the implementation of grassroots Chinese medicine service capacity improvement projects, and adopted various measures to deliver high-quality Chinese medicine services to the grassroots.

First, constantly improve the grass-roots Chinese medicine service network. Since 2012, the central government has supported the construction of 36700 Chinese medicine centers. By the end of 2020, 85.38 per cent of the country's community health service centres and 80.14 per cent of township health centres had set up TCM clinics. 99 per cent of community health service centers, 98 per cent of township health centers, 90.6 per cent of community health service stations and 74.5 per cent of village clinics have the capacity to serve traditional Chinese medicine.

The second is to continue to strengthen the construction of grassroots Chinese medicine talents. Through targeted training, training of general practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine, construction of inheritance studios for grass-roots famous and old Chinese medicine experts, and unblocking the career development channels of grass-roots talents, we will expand the supply of grass-roots talents, promote the flow of talents to the grass-roots level, and improve the environment for the development of grass-roots talents. By the end of 2020, 10,000 urban and rural residents had 0.66 general practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine, and 82.4 per cent of community health service stations and 58.92 per cent of village clinics had at least one doctor capable of providing traditional Chinese medicine services.

The third is to widely promote the appropriate technology of traditional Chinese medicine at the grass-roots level. All localities rely on existing TCM medical institutions to strengthen the capacity building of grassroots TCM appropriate technology promotion. A total of 32 provincial bases and more than 1820 county-level bases for the promotion of appropriate technologies of traditional Chinese medicine have been established. By the end of 2020, 86.04 per cent of community health service centers and 81.03 per cent of township health centers will be able to provide more than six categories of traditional Chinese medicine technical methods.

Four is to carry out urban and rural counterpart support of traditional Chinese medicine. Coordinate 403 tertiary hospitals to assist 699 county-level Chinese medicine hospitals, and continue to improve the service capabilities of county-level Chinese medicine hospitals by means of resident assistance, personnel training, and technical guidance.

In the next step, we will conscientiously implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, further leverage the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine, strengthen the construction of grassroots talent teams, continuously improve service capabilities, and play a more important role in accelerating the construction of a healthy China and serving the health of the people.