COVID-19: Madagascar Solution Stirs Claims of Local Organic Cure in Nigeria
The search for homegrown solutions to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has gathered momentum. Despite opposition from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and other agencies, traditional/ herbal cures are blazing the trail.
In fact, a herbal tonic from Madagascar has broken all the boundaries especially because the President of the country has sworn by it and instructed that it should be used to treat its citizens who contract the virus. Since then, other African countries, including Senegal and Nigeria, have joined the bandwagon.
But what is interesting in the case of Nigeria is that a Federal Government who had rejected similar herbal drugs brought forward by its own scientists was now ready to receive such product from Madagascar. President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to deploy the Madagascar herbal drug for the treatment of patients with COVID-19 in Nigeria but only after tests by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
Nevertheless, after health workers in Nigeria including pharmacists, nurses and medical laboratory scientists and the House of Representatives kicked against the plan to import the herbal tonic – COVID-Organics (CVO) – from Madagascar, the Presidency seems to be making a U-turn. The Presidency last Thursday explained that it did not order for the herbal tonic from Madagascar, saying it was offered to the country.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire; the Director General of NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye; and President/Chief Executive Officer, Bioresources Development Group, Prof. Maurice Iwu refused to comment on the issues at press time.
But the Minister had said during the PTF briefing last Monday that the plant used for the Madagascar herbal medicine grows in the country.He said the expected samples would be compared with the strain in Nigeria to ascertain its similarities.
“We understand that it is something called Artemisia annua, which also grows here. But we would like to get that sample and compare it with the strain here to know if they are exactly identical or similar and then see what properties it has. It will be subjected to analysis to find out what works in there and how it works and is used in getting a cure.
The Guardian.
