To boost indigenous medicine and create easy access to information, the Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency (NNMDA) plans to standardise and document the products and services of Traditional Medical Practitioners (TMP).
The agency’s Director General, Prof Martins Emeje, who disclosed this in Lagos during an event to mark its first anniversary, said there is a need to have proper documentation of traditional medicine to help Nigerians make necessary choices and inquiries.
He said: “Traditional medicine is peculiar to each environment and this means that our job and responsibility is to work together with the traditional medical practitioners to render services to communities through standardisation.
“We have a programme starting in Lagos State where we are going to document every traditional medical practitioner, the services they render, and products they provide, as well as digitalised such so that from anywhere in the world when you want to have information or access to any traditional medical practitioner, you can do it on the touch of a button.”
Emeje also highlighted the importance of TMP and how their knowledge of ingenious medicine is vital to the growth of natural medicine in the country.
“We depend on the knowledge of these traditional medical practitioners, their folkloric knowledge they provide and their traditional medicine is peculiar to the culture. We have decided that the era of people trying to belittle or disrespect traditional medical practitioners is gone,” he said.
The Consul General of India, Shri Chandramouli Kumar Kern, at the event said the agency is improving every day under the leadership of the DG, adding that India thrives on the use of its indigenous medicine.
He announced plans to support, partner with the agency and introduce Nigeria to Indian natural medicine. “The DG has some Indian connection because he studied in India. India is a land with gifts given by nature from the indigenous things and the knowledge we got from our forefathers. NNMDA is required to calibrate, standardise, and develop drugs from indigenous sources to help Nigerians and over time add to foreign exchange. We will support this initiative,” he said.
