Founder of the African University College of Communications (AUCC), Kojo Yankah, has called on African leaders to rise and attempt to develop herbal medicines to tackle the coronavirus and stop the over-reliance on the West for vaccines.
He said he is still waiting for the day authorities will announce that the first herbal medicine for clinical trials for treatment of Covid-19, has been approved in Africa.
In a Facebook post, he said “African Media : I am still waiting for Ghanaian/African media HEADLINE BREAKING NEWS that Ghana’s FDA has approved ‘the first herbal medicine for Clinical Trials for the TREATMENT of COVID-19″.
“Rather I am reading headlines suggesting Vaccines are on the way ! Oh Africa, when can we BELIEVE in ourselves ! Wake Up Africa ! 80% of our people have survived thousands of years on Traditional Herbal Medicine, which we shamefully call ‘alternative medicine’.”
His comments come after the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) on Monday February 1, announced in a statement that it has approved the first herbal medicine for clinical trial on the coronavirus treatment in the country.
The statement said the “School of Public Health at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST), submitted a clinical trial application in September 2020.”
“The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), The National Medicine Regulatory Agency (NMRA) in Ghana, has approved a herbal medicine, Cryptolepis sanguinolenta, locally known as Nibima for clinical trials in January 2021.”
It added “In the search for a treatment for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from the School of Public Health at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, (KNUST), submitted a clinical trial application in September 2020 to assess the safety and efficacy of Cryptolepis sanguinolenta as a potential treatment for COVID-19. This follows results from laboratory studies conducted by the KNUST research team which points in the direction of possible clinical benefits.”
Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced that vaccines for the coronavirus will arrive into the country by March this year.
In his 23rd update to the nation last Sunday January 31, he said “Fellow Ghanaians, in Update No. 21, I indicated that Ghana is set to procure her first consignment of the COVID vaccines within the first half of this year. Since then, a lot of work has been done towards the realisation of this. Our aim is to vaccinate the entire population, with an initial target of twenty million people.
“Through bilateral and multilateral means, we are hopeful that, by the end of June, a total of seventeen million, six hundred thousand (17.6 million) vaccine doses would have been procured for the Ghanaian people. The earliest vaccine will be in the country by March.
“The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) will use its established processes for granting emergency-use-authorization for each vaccine in Ghana. As President of the Republic, I assure you that only vaccines that have been evaluated and declared as safe-for-use in Ghana will be administered.”
Source: 3news
