By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
The Minister of State for Health, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, has called on Universities in the country to introduce Bachelor of Science degree programme in herbal medicine for better healthcare delivery.
Mamora made the call at the weekend during the conference commemorating the 2019 African Traditional Medicine Day in Abuja.
Nigeria celebrates the African Traditional Medicine day every August 31.
At the programme themed; “Integrating Traditional Medicine in Health Sciences Curricular in the African Region”, the Minister appealed to Nigerian universities to incorporate modules of herbal medicine in their curricular of health sciences.
He added that this could be achieved with support from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
Mamora, also unveiled the ministry’s report on curriculum development for the training of herbal medical practitioners and medical schools.
He urged agencies and departments working on traditional medicine in the country to work together for the development of the sector.
He said the ultimate goal of government in the sector was to derive maximum economic benefits from traditional medicine like China, India and other countries.
The minister urged state governments and the Federal Capital Territory to establish traditional medicine departments for healthcare development.
Mamora said such department should be complementary to medicine department to provide opportunities for rapid development and integration of traditional medicine into the healthcare delivery system.
In her welcome address, the Director , TCAM , Pharm Zaniab Shariff, from the Department of Traditional, Complementary & Alternative Medicine (TCAM), said Nigeria have over 8,000 species of medicinal plants which need to exploited.
“We cannot continue to allow the Chinese to take our raw plants cheap and package it back us to pay higher than than the price they got. We must wake up and appreciate what we have at home.
These plants are not only for health benefits, but also for nutritional value.”
She added that 1billion dollars is generated annually from the sales of traditional medicine by China and India.
