With global revenue for traditional medicines estimated at US$60 billion annually, Nigeria is yet to tap into $60 billion traditional medicine market, a situation countries like China and Brazil have tapped into to rake in revenues worth US$14 billion and US$160 million respectively.
While African countries like South Africa, Ghana, Egypt and Morocco develop and maintain institutional mandates to fast-track the coordination of research and development, promotion and documentation of traditional medicine, experts have tasked Nigerian scientists and researchers to develop drugs that would not only meet the nation’s healthcare but also see it participate in the global traditional medicine market.
In an interview with BusinessDay, Paul Orhii, director general, National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said that given the enormous economic potentials traditional medicine offers, a holistic step to ensure that effective regulation is in place in order to aid the incorporation of traditional medicine into the nation’s healthcare system.
While 1,372 traditional medicines ranging from processed and packaged powders, syrups/suspensions, ointment/creams, etc, listed in the last 15-18 years in Nigeria, Orhii stated that a few have been formulated into a pharmaceutical dosage forms that have a lot of potentials.
“Two of these manufacturers have followed the path of science and did the needful from proof of concept up to Phase 2 based on which the manufacturers were allowed to state indications on the labels. Work is in progress on those. Under the current dispensation, the manufacturers of herbal products appear to have a great deal in the kinds of product they are allowed to market provided they are listed and the ways in which they are allowed to market them.
The DG NAFDAC continued “Evidence of efficacy is not a prerequisite for herbal listing by NAFDAC but to put up claims of indications, the individual would have to conduct scientific research and follow protocols because without these being followed, it can be harmful when herbal products that are unsafe are allowed into the market.
“I have been very concerned about the proliferation of some traditional medicines, particularly the herbs, roots or other allied products that are put out to the public via the media, with ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims of cure for ailments, including serious diseases like HIV/AIDS. Unsuspecting public relies heavily on advertorials and it behooves us, as a scientific regulatory body to either prove or debunk such claims scientifically so that people are not hoodwinked into spending huge sums of money for treatments that are ineffective and may sometimes be too dangerous to even cause harm,” Orhii reiterated.
Under the current regulatory regime, NAFDAC enlists products based on safety studies. By taking this new initiative and steps, the Agency hopes to raise the status of listed products thereby providing more reliable, safer and good quality herbal supplements generally accepted across the globe.
Lending her view, Shariff Zainab, managing director, Nigerian Medicinal Plants development Company (NMPDC) explained that the discovery and isolation of artemisinin from Artemisia annua L., a plant used in the formulation of antimalarials now was used in China for almost 2000 years.
ALEXANDER CHIEJINA
