By Asmau Ahmad
The Federal Ministry of Health says plans are ongoing to establish traditional, complementary and alternative medicine institute to train traditional medicine practitioners across the country.
The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr Abdulaziz Abdullahi made this known at the opening of two-day training for traditional medical practitioners in Nigeria in Abuja.
The training was organised by the Department of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (TCAM) of the ministry.
Represented by Director of TCAM, Mrs Zainab Sheriff said the institute would host the training of the practitioners and certification.
He said the ministry was also pursuing the establishment of TCAM Council through a Bill that was currently pending before the National Assembly.
According to him, many herbal products distributed in the country are of low quality.
The permanent secretary said this had impacted negatively on the status of the herbal products in terms of confidence and perception of the products by Nigerians.
“The above scenario calls for the need to train and retrain traditional medicine practitioners in order to enhance their skills and competences. It is the mandate of the ministry to harness the potential of the traditional medicine practitioners in the effort to develop and integrate traditional medicine practice into the health care system of the country,” he said.
In her remarks, Sheriff said the TCAM department had been able to fulfill its mandate of promoting traditional medicine and build the capacity of the practitioners.
“This training has been carefully selected for traditional medical practitioners who have volunteers to register in line with the requirement of the ministry. The training is for practitioners who have registered in line with the requirement of the ministry in the sense of developing traditional medicine database for practitioners in Nigeria.
“You will be empowered to promote our own products through scientific addition to traditional medicine. We are aware that you are in charge of 80 per cent of people, who leave in rural areas; you are the first point of call. We need to collaborate with you to reach this population,” she said.
Meanwhile, National President of the Nigerian Traditional Medicine Practitioners, Mr Lakowa Ibrahim commended the Federal Government for organising the training for them.
Mr Ibrahim, however, expressed the hope that the practitioners would be able to treat serious cases with herbal medicine with support of the government.
“We have developed herbal medicine for cancer, HIV, COVID-19 and other serious diseases. Countries such as China and Ghana have supported their herbal medicine practitioners to develop medicines and remedies to complement orthodox medicine.
“We need such support, we need equipment to produce those medicines; if that is done, we don’t need to look elsewhere for treatment again,” he said.
