African Govts urged to support herbal medicine development

Ejisu (Ash), June 27, GNA - African Governments have been asked to give budgetary allocation to support the search for herbal cure for HIV/AIDS.

Even though plants contain substances vital for the development of medicine that could cure of the infection, African Governments had downplayed the role of traditional medicine in favour of the orthodox, Mr Kamara Agyapong, Managing Director of the Peace Herbal Clinic at Ejisu-Zongo, told the Ghana News Agency.

Mr Agyapong said if African Governments were determined to give its people good quality health, then the authorities should assist health practitioner to develop their own medicine, using plants instead of relying on orthodox medicine.

He said herbal preparations from natural materials did not have hazardous side effects unlike orthodox medicine, which depended on synthetic base.

Mr Agyapong said apart from being medicinal, plant medicine also served as food for humans, and are very accessible and less costly too. He called on cooperate bodies in Ghana that use their profits in organising beauty contests, to divert such monies into complementing efforts of the Government and herbalists at developing plant medicine. Mr Agyapong has recently developed "Koankro", an herbal preparation for the management and cure of HIV/AIDS.

He said the Bio-Chemistry Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi had certified the preparation as potent and he was awaiting confirmation through the Viral Load CD4 Count Determined Machine, before it could be commercialised. 27 June 05