World Health Organization issues a working paper on how cupping therapy training is organised

21 October 2026

The World Health Organization published a 30-page working paper titled Cupping therapy: descriptive synthesis of training on 21 October 2026, with ISBN 9789240125964. It was prepared by the Global Traditional Medicine Centre, the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine, and is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. The paper gives an evidence-informed overview of how cupping therapy training is reported and organised across traditional, complementary and integrative medicine settings, drawing mainly on a systematic scoping review. It describes training pathways and curriculum content, competency domains and learning outcomes, approaches to delivery and assessment, trainer qualifications and training facilities, and accreditation arrangements. It focuses mainly on cupping based on traditional Chinese medicine while acknowledging the wider diversity of cupping practices across medical systems. The World Health Organization describes it as a descriptive and non-normative reference for policy-makers, regulators, education and accreditation bodies, health professionals, researchers and practitioners.