Yes quality is the big challenge for traditional medicine s.

These drugs require quality and safety data

Ekor, M. (2014). The growing use of herbal medicines: issues relating to adverse reactions and challenges in monitoring safety. Frontiers in pharmacology, 4, 177.

Article The growing use of herbal medicines: issues relating to adve...

In general, the use of traditional medicines has increased tremendously over the past few decades and a large portion of world population rely on them for primary healthcare. Although therapies involving these agents have shown promising potential with the efficacy of a good number of herbal products clearly established, many of them remain untested and their use are either poorly monitored or not even monitored at all. The consequence of this is an inadequate knowledge of their mode of action, potential adverse reactions, contraindications, and interactions with existing orthodox pharmaceuticals and functional foods to promote both safe and rational use of these agents. Since safety continues to be a major issue with the use of herbal remedies, it becomes imperative, therefore, that relevant regulatory authorities put in place appropriate measures to protect public health by ensuring that all herbal medicines are safe and of suitable quality.

The global acceptance and use of herbal medicines and related products continue to assume exponential increase. Issues relating to adverse reactions in recent times are also becoming more vivid, increasing in prevalence and no longer debatable because of previous misconception of regarding or categorizing herbal medicinal products as “safe” because they are derived from “natural” source. The reality is that “safety” and “natural” are not synonymous. Therefore, regulatory policies on herbal medicines need to be standardized and strengthened on a global scale. Relevant regulatory authorities in different countries of the world need to be proactive and continue to put in place appropriate measures to protect public health by ensuring that all herbal medicines approved for sale are safe and of suitable quality.

Providers of medicines, such as physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, often have little training in and understanding of how herbal medicines affect the health of their patients. Many of them are also poorly informed about these products and how they are being used. Adequate training is now very essential since most patients are almost often on other types of prescription or non-prescription medicines. In spite of the fact that the active involvement of orthodox healthcare professionals is continuously solicited and huge responsibility lies with them in terms of their valuable contributions to safety monitoring of medicinal products, it is also very important that all providers of herbal medicines are sufficiently empowered to play a role in monitoring safety of herbal medicines. This, however, should be in collaboration with the orthodox healthcare professionals. For this to be effective, it would be essential to create an atmosphere of trust to facilitate adequate sharing of knowledge about the use and safety of herbal medicines. In fact, the education of healthcare professionals, providers of herbal medicines, and patients/consumers is vital for the prevention of potentially serious risks from misuse of herbal medicines.

Of crucial importance also is an appropriate knowledge base relevant to diagnostic and treatment decision-making. Furthermore, individual healthcare provider should also show sufficient commitment toward understanding the use of herbal medicines. This can be by asking relevant questions about the use of these herbal remedies among others whenever they encounter patients who are taking these medications. Health professionals who work in poisons centers and health information services also need to be informed about herbal medicines. Finally, as with other medicines for human use, it has become mandatory that herbal medicines are covered in every country of the world by a drug regulatory framework to ensure that they conform with required standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.

good article!

Maintaining proper quality of traditional medicines is very difficult as these are obtained from nature. But if we follow the proper guidelines for ex WHO guidelines we can determine the quality of traditional medicines and standardization also can be done easily.