FG to include herbal medicine in medical curriculum


The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, has said that herbal medicine will be made part of the nation’s medical curriculum, to ensure standard in the health profession.

Chukwu said this on Thursday in Abuja at the Ministerial Platform on the mid-term report of progress and achievements of President Goodluck Jonathan, organised by the Ministry of Information.

He observed that the idea by people using herbs thinking that they have found cure for HIV/AIDS, without medical evidence, hindered growth of the nation’s health sector.

He said that although there were research institutes across the country, plan was underway by the ministry, to inculcate herbal medicine in the medical curriculum, in line with international best practices.

“Research is important; we have research through major research institutes, they have been a lot of research on malaria, cholera epidemic, non-communicable diseases,” he said. “Now, anytime the ministry gets people who say they have found the cure for HIV/AIDS, I write to the D-G National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD).

If you go today you will see people who are working, they are analysing what Nigerians are plagued with, and the only thing is that medicine has to be evidence based. But we must move ahead in this country; we have done enough research to prove that yes there some goodness in some other thing. Take for instance the issue of traditional medicine, why have we not moved forward? It is because we do many things that we can’t cope with. So herbal medicine is going to be in the medicine school and that is where we can truly say we have captured that aspect.”

The minister warned people from patronising paramedics, by thinking that herbal practitioners were paramedics, adding that doing so contributed to health damages. He explained that the paramedics’ profession was not a volunteering service, but that people acquired the skills through proper medical training