Centre for Research and Development of Ethno-medicinal Plants (CREDEP)

The CREDEP was established in 1993, with the Registration for Scientific and Technological Activities No. 28/DK-KHCN dated 18 November 1993 of the Hanoi Department of Science - Technology and Environment.

The CREDEP is a legal scientific voluntary organization (NGO), which includes professors, doctors, physicians, pharmacists, biologists, lawyers and traditional healers, who worked and/or are working at universities, institutes, medical and pharmaceutical organizations within the country and abroad.

The primary activities of the Centre are to explore, inherit and study the fundamentals and experiment with the productive development of ethnomedicinal plants and remedies of the national minorities of Vietnam.

Its aim is to maintain the continuity and development of this precious Indigenous knowledge for prevention and cure of disease of people. The centre is also able to study conservation, sustainable utilization and development of the plant diversity and medicinal plants in general, and to organize and collaborate to cultivate medicinal plants in a large scale to extract their active components (e.g. Artemisia annua L. for extraction of artemisinin and its derivations as DHA, artesunat, artemether etc. to treat malaria).

The Centre also participates in the following activities:
• Contribute to the study on ethnomedicinal and ethnopharmaceutical theory in Vietnam.
• Organize the existing scientific tecnological services on medicinal plants which explore the capacity of the scientists and the scientific organizations and factories in Vietnam to supply the needs of society.
• Inform any interested organization or individual about the results of studies on medicinal plants and drugs of other countries, especially the countries in Asia, for use in Vietnam.

This will contribute to the enrichment of Vietnamese medicine and pharmacy. In order to inherit and promote the research and utilization of herbal drugs for the need of public healthcare, since 1993 the Centre has carried out studies of ethnomedicinal plants and their Indigenous Knowledge of the ethnic minorities in different mountainous areas of Vietnam.