The West African Health Organisation (WAHO) has advised traditional and conventional medicine practitioners to strengthen efforts towards solutions for emerging diseases like COVID-19 and others that have continued to reappear in the region.
Director General of the organisation, Prof. Stanley Okolo gave the advice on Wednesday while launching volume two of the ECOWAS herbal pharmacopeia at the 12th scientific congress of traditional medicine and conventional medicine practitioners in Abuja.
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“We should ask ourselves why we shouldn’t be looking at herbal medicine for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. We don’t have that in the pharmacopeia. That is something we should be thinking of,” he said.
Okolo said the need for traditional medicine practitioners to strengthen efforts was underscored by the various platforms they now have such as the introduction of traditional medicine into the medical school curriculum and the ability to talk to the government through WAHO.
He enjoined the practitioners to carry out a critical review of activities implemented in the various countries in the last two years, evaluate challenges, improve on them and also collaborate with the ministries of health in their various countries to ensure traditional medicine is given its pride of place.
Chair of the ceremony, Dr Yirinkyi Anastasia from Ghana said the conference was aimed at reviewing traditional and conventional medicine programmes implemented in the ECOWAS countries in the last two decades.
