Titus Eleweke
16 November 2009
Prof. (Mrs). Veronica Okochi of the Department of Biochemistry, University of Lagos (UNILAG) has urged Nigerians to embrace herbal medicine because of its human friendliness and effectiveness in curing diseases.
She gave this advice while delivering the institution's Inaugural lecture entilted 'The bugs that refuse to die and the supper tailors: Their impact on health, economic and social well -being of man' at the University of Lagos main Auditorium.
"The human body is much better suited to treatment with herbal remedies than the isolated chemical medicine for the very reason that man has evolved with plants over the centuries ,therefore, his digestive system and physiology as whole are geared to digesting and utilizing plant -based foods, which often have medicinal values as well as providing sustenance," she said.
She said medicinal plants remain safe, sustainable and cheap source of medicinal remedies, adding that the only problem it has in Nigeria is that its preparations is that codified.
'The problem with our local preparation is not in lack of efficacy, but in the lack of standardization and hygienic packaging 'she said.
Okochi said it was only at the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife that some thing concrete has been done in term of formulation of herbal products from the medicinal plants in the country, advising that things should be done to improve on preparations and packaging of herbal drugs.
'We need to prepare our herbal medicines scientifically so that we can know the appropriate dose that we can take for particular sickness," she said.
According to her, in the industrialized countries, conventional medicines are becoming more ineffective owing to drug resistance, toxicity, adverse side effect and prohibitive cost of productions.
She noted that the use of herbal medicine has been gaining prominence in the developed countries and wondered why Nigeria should not embrace herbal medicinal plants for its healthcare delivery.
The don said, in China, traditional and orthodox medicine practices have been integrated within the frame work of official health sevices, thereby taking the advantages of the positive features of each for their effective healthcare delivery.
She condemned Nigerians penchant for imported medicinal products, saying that Nigerians import ginger tea, when the country local market are awash with ginger and other health giving products from beverages .
Okochi said that if Nigerians are serious in maximizing the potentials of the herbal medicine as China and India are doing, they should begin to prepare the local medicinal plants in the country ,instead of importing packaged ones from Asian countries,.
"I think it is about time we look down and pick up treasures divinely laid down at our feet instead of looking up to the sky where we can't reach easily .We have the manpower and sustainable resource to effect maximum use of our medicinal plants thereby empowering our people and conserving our scare financial resources for other judicious uses," she said.
She advised academics to develop interest in interdepartmental and interdisciplinary collaborations towards finding better ways of packaging and preparing herbs.
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