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The Universal Plant Medicine and Traditional Healers Association want President Akufo-Addo to lead the charge in encouraging the use of herbal products in the country.
According to the herbal medicine practitioners, although they now employ modern and scientifically proven technologies in producing various drugs, they still do not have the needed recognition by authorities and the general public.
Speaking at a press conference in Kumasi, the Vice President of the Universal Plant Medicine and Traditional Healers Association, Issah Nyamekye, charged President Akufo-Addo to endorse the use of scientifically proven herbal medicine to boost the local economy.
They believe that this will increase the confidence of Ghanaians in herbal medicine and help employ more persons within the herbal medicine value chain.
“We want the government to come out to say something for people to have confidence in using herbal medicine in Ghana. If you look at the number of people practising herbal now, we are over 20,000 practitioners and more than 5,000 graduates in which some people are still practising herbal unlike before, so we are pleading with the government to come out to just say something for people to understand herbal medicine is an alternative to the other medicine. When we are able to do this, this unemployment situation we see will reduce drastically. Let’s look at a company like Ebenage, look at the number of people they have employed and how fast the medicine is helping people.”
The group also called on the Food and Drugs Authority and other relevant stakeholders to speak on the status of herbal medicine products that are undergoing clinical trials for COVID-19.
“I am among those who took the medicine to the ministries. We had about 33 medicine including Hepa Plus Mixture. It was accepted as immune boosters after we took it to the ministries. They had to take it to the highest ministries which is the Noguchi to test it. They said 19 of them had passed and 10 are very efficacious. I don’t know why it is still lying down that, and they are not using them.”
Also speaking at the news conference, the Chief Executive Officer of Ebenage Herbal Production and Consult, Ebenezer Agyemang, said since Ghana is the first to commence training of herbal medicine practitioners in Africa, there should be a conscious effort to promote science-based herbal medicine to pave way for other countries to follow.
“In the whole of Africa, Ghana is fortunate to have started offering degree programs in herbal medicine. We are the pioneers of adding science and evidence-based herbal medicine not only in West Africa but the whole of Africa so if we will just sit down, watch herbal medicine move at a tortoise pace, I think we will not be doing good to ourselves.”
Source: Benjamin Owusu (Contributor)
