A new research center for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in Hradec Kralove, the Czech Republic, which is also the first TCM center in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), was officially opened on Wednesday.As a concrete result of closer cooperation between China and CEE countries in recent years, the center, which was unveiled with presence of visiting Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong, serves as a manifest for the expansion of areas of China-CEE pragmatic cooperation.

The new research center is a key part of the under-construction TCM clinic of the Hradec Kralove University Hospital, located in the Eastern Bohemia district.

The initiative, supported by authorities of both countries, is believed to help establish TCM practices within the Czech health system, a system which has to date been based solely on Western principles, and offer a complementary method for patients.

Although TCM has already existed in the Czech Republic for more than five decades, with practitioners using methods such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, these treatments are not officially recognized here and stand apart from the regulated state health sector. They are also not part of the medical curriculum in university education.

Nevertheless, the founder of the project, Prof. Roman Prymula, the university hospital director and president of the Czech Vaccinological Society, who has paid several visits to Chinese medical institutions in recent years, is convinced that Eastern medical practices do have a place in Western medicine.

In an interview with Xinhua, Prymula emphasized the treatments' merits and stressed that they should coexist with traditional western medical techniques for the benefit of patients, even though their underlying philosophies may be quite different.

The center will primarily focus on alleviation of pain and above all on all oncological patients and particular neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, and will employ methods such as acupuncture and herbal therapies. The results will be thoroughly studied for scientific purposes to compare them with traditional Western methods.

While Prymula thinks that finding common ground in the two medical systems may prove difficult, due to the fundamental difference in the underlying concepts, he is aware of the general benefits of the integrated approach.

"In China there is a tendency to combine Eastern and Western practices to harness the power of both," Prymula said, also noting that the successful application of TCM already exists in other countries.

"In the USA there are specialized centers for the treatment of pain which employ acupuncture as their core method and they have beyond any doubt proved its efficacy. And we want to set out on this path as well," he said.