FG to establish research farms in 774 LGs
Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency (NNMDA), has announced its plans to establish research farms in all 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria as well as herbal clinics in all states.
Director General of the Agency, Prof. Martins Emeje, disclosed this at a Community engagement meeting for health and economic growth of Nigeria at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State.
The engagement organised in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation was on importance of Integrating Indigenous Medicine with Orthodox Health Practices for Community Health and Economic Development.
Emeje explained that the research farms would be meant for integrated cultivation, medical production, functional foods among others.
“Currently, that of Kano State is 90% completed, while that of Plateau and Cross River States just commenced.
The DG, however, decried Nigeria’s over-dependence on importation of drugs and other healthcare products, regretting that over 160million Nigerians could not afford imported drugs a situation he described as painful and shameful.
He said, “Nigeria and Africa have been over-dependent on importation of healthcare products, including drugs. As at today, Nigeria doesn’t manufacture a single drug. This is quite painful and shameful.
“This simply means we’re insecure in terms of medicine, not just the insecurity we all know. That is why we decided to see how we can develop our own indigenous and natural medicine so can produce our drugs locally.
“We’re naturally endowed with diverse plants, animal and other untapped bio-resources we can convert to our own medicine.
“Over 40% of current drugs in the pharmaceutical space globally are from the plant origin, not to talk of animals, minerals and soil. For every disease, the solution is within the environment. There’s no disease in Nigeria that the panecea is not here.
“We can boast of men and women in our cultural heritage of herbal and traditional medical practitioners with wealth of knowledge and experience of how to tackle all manner of diseases in our society. That’s why our ancestors lived over 100years.
“But today, life expectancy is less than 60years. That’s because we’ve thrown away our culture and heritage and are busy exporting and exploiting our own cultural bio-diversity and depending on imported pharmaceuticals.
“The predictions of increase in mortality rate in Nigeria and Africa during COVID-19 didn’t come true because of our abundant bio-diversity especially of plant origin. Nature has endowed us with combination therapy which we must harness.
“This engagement is part of a research project involving five countries of China, India, United Kingdom, Uganda and Nigeria who are collaborating to find solutions to the problem of anti-microbial using herbal medicine of Nigeria origin.”
Meanwhile ,Vice Chancellor, Prof Charles Esimone said the engagement was targeted at harvesting indigenous knowledge of medical plants for affordable, sustainable and acceptable healthcare.
He said, “We’re trying to harvest indigenous knowledge in terms of medicinal plants, document and explore them further for affordable, sustainable and acceptable healthcare within and outside our environment.
“Nigeria is a big country to overlook or underate, especially in the area of healthcare provision and we have comparative advantage in terms of natural medicine.
“We also have very rich, but untapped bio-diversity. Regrettably, our traditional healers with enormous endowment are going to their graves with those endowment.
“Universities are supposed to provide policy direction based on imperical researches they’ve done. UNIZIK has track record in terms of research in pharmaceuticals with corresponding strong pharmaceutical faculty and extensive collaboration nationally and internationally.
Deputy Director/State Coordinator, Anambra State Office, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Pharm Louis Madubuattah assured the agency’s support to the project, including addressing challenge of clinical trials and products certification for marketing.
