Herbal medicines play very essential roles in Ghana’s health system as over 70% of the Nation’s population use herbal medicines for the treatment and management of diseases. Some few years ago, herbal medicine practice was integrated into some public hospitals of Ghana to give patients the choice to be treated either by an orthodox practitioner with orthodox drugs or by a professionally trained medical herbalist with herbal medicines.
This integration policy which started with 19 pilot units has seen an increase to 55 units within selected hospitals within the 16 regions across the country. These integrated herbal centers within the government hospitals used to work with a few approved herbal medicines listed unto the mainstream system of which most of them are produced from the Center for Plant Medicine Research (CPMR) at Akuapem Mampong.
Recently, there is a total of 106 herbal medicines listed unto the mainstream system.
These recommended herbal medicines are mainly for the treatment and management of 15 conditions of public health concern including communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Two essential documents namely, Basic Procedures for Assessing Efficacy and Safety of Herbal Medicines and Recommended Herbal Medicines List has been lunched to promote traditional medicines in Ghana.
According to Dr. Anastasia Yirenkyi, who is the Director for the Traditional And Alternative Medicines Directorate (TAMD), MOH, they looked a lot of factors to bring about this list of medicines to help guide their practitioners in giving primary healthcare.
Also, the president of the Ghana Federation of the Traditional Medicine Practitioner’s Association, Mr. Kojo Odum Edufu, called for a National Traditional Medicine Fund to aid research work.
“The herbal medicines are so promising not only for covid-19 but for so many ailments that if the government can create a traditional medicine development fund to do more research, there will come a time when it won’t be necessary to be importing so many drugs from abroad” – Mr. Kojo Odum Edufu.
The Traditional And Alternative Medicines Directorate (TAMD) is hopeful that research into herbal medicines would be increased to help boost up the industry.
