Some experts have called on all tiers of government in Nigeria to pay more attention to alternative and herbal medicine in order to boost healthcare delivery.
They made the call in Ibadan at a lecture organised by the Oyo State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the lecture was held in commemoration of the 2018 Sustainable Gastronomy Day.
Wikipedia defines gastronomy as the study of the relationship between food and culture, art of preparing and serving rich or delicate and appetizing food, the cooking styles of particular regions and the science of good eating.
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The UN General Assembly had on December 21, 2016 adopted June 18 as Sustainable Gastronomy Day.
The decision acknowledged gastronomy as a cultural expression related to the natural and cultural diversity of the world.
Akintunde Ayeni, President of Yemkem Group and Guest Lecturer at the event, said Nigeria was endowed with lots of natural medicines.
Mr Ayeni in his lecture entitled, “Nature and Human Health”, said that natural medicines have capacity to cure many serious and life threatening ailments which have defied interventions by orthodox medicine.
He listed social psychiatry, hypertension, diabetes, epilepsy and other psychosomatic diseases as some of the ailments which natural medicines have the capacity of curing.
“Our governments should prioritise development of herbal medicine through keeping inventory and documentation of medicinal plants and herbs.
“They should establish local botanical gardens, potent regulatory body for traditional medicine practice and set up testing laboratories with adequate facilities to ensure quality control in herbal production,’’ Ayeni said.
Mr Ayeni said that herbal medicine practitioners across the country had ensured tremendous improvement on packaging strategies.
He said they had also evolved measures aimed at addressing the fears on measurability, dosage, preparation, documentation, preservation, potency and determination of side effects of traditional medical care.
“I want to assure the public that over 70 per cent shortcomings have been rectified while the remaining 30 per cent is receiving required attention,” he said
Also speaking, Taiye Ayorinde, the Baale of Ekotedo in Ibadan, urged Nigerians to take advantage of the efficacy of traditional medicine if they desired to live long.
Ayorinde, who was the Chairman of the occasion, said he was rescued from blindness through the application of herbs after spending his first three years on earth with visual impairment.
Earlier, Adewunmi Faniran, the Oyo State NUJ Chairman, said that alternative medicine had the potential to heal many illnesses ravaging the country and its people.
He said the economy would also get a boost if adequate attention was given to traditional medicine.
NAN
