Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/ANN) - Esti Winarni, 39, has been selling Indonesian traditional herbal medicine (known locally as jamu) for the past 25 years and not once has she experienced a slump in demand. Instead of taking drugs, many people choose herbal drinks such as curcuma or temulawak. The plant species has been long known for its wide-range of health benefits, including anti-inflammatory effects.

"This [curcuma] is the cure for all health problems," she said.

Winarni believes that people regularly consuming curcuma are also less likely to have chronic health problems such as diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension.

The 2010 Health Basic Research report says that 59.12 per cent of the country's population knows about or regularly consumes curcuma.

"If we can further promote the use of jamu and make around 80 to 90 per cent of the population interested in consuming jamu, people won't get ill anymore. This should secure the place of jamu in our health care system," said the Health Ministry's traditional, alternative and complimentary health service director, Abidinsyah Siregar.

Integrating the traditional medicine into the existing formal health care system is one of several health development goals in the 2010-2014 Health Ministry Strategic Plan.

The government expects that by 2014, 250 regencies and municipalities - 50 per cent of local administrations - will have developed traditional health care services.

Under the programme, each regency and municipality should have several community health centres, or Puskesmas, that work as service models for delivering traditional care.

The two types of traditional health care services provided by the community health centres are herbal medicines and acupuncture and acupressure services.

The centres will also have to conduct various activities to introduce plants with positive health effects.

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Traditional medicine set to be part of Indonesia healthcare system