The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has stressed the need for traditional medicines practitioners in Nigeria to partner researchers with a view to making herbal products internationally acceptable after clinical trials.
Adeyeye said this in a statement to mark the 2020 African Traditional Medicines Day celebrated every August 31 annually. The statement was titled, ‘National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control Sets to Make Nigerian Herbal Medicines Meet International Standards.’
“NAFDAC has been focused on making traditional herbal medicines prominent with regards to the activities of the Agency. To this end, in March 2019, long before the advent of COVID -19 in Nigeria, the DG called for a meeting of all stakeholders including academia, herbal medicine practitioners, and legal practitioners. The essence of the meeting was to engender a culture of collaborative effort aimed at promoting research, discovery, and production of herbal products.
“The Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria is making loans available to qualified manufacturers of pharmaceutical products. The CBN has also launched the Health Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme to fund successful proposals on translational R&D and manufacturing of therapeutics, herbal medicines, and medical devices for infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
“It is important to note that while the listing of a herbal product guarantees safety, and it is for two years at the first instance, a herbal product that has successfully gone through clinical trials would receive NAFDAC‘s full registration and the claims of efficacy and cure can then be made by applicants,” the statement read in part.
Adeyeye in the statement added that the ultimate goal, with regards to traditional herbal medicines was to come up with products that were not only marketable in the country, but also acceptable globally.
PUNCH
