BY DR MASIMBA MAVAZA.
London. (News of The South) – The world has scrambled to get a treatment for COVID 19. As of today nothing has been discovered by the world which can treat Covid 19. Whatever comes from Africa is dismissed with disgusting contempt. The world has been exposed for it’s hypocrisy.
All the developed countries are the only ones who claim to have a God given power to research, find, produce and sell the treatment for any ailment.
Madagascar found the treatment of covid – 19 and they are the only country with very low figures of infections and zero deaths. They told the world about their findings this infuriated the super powers who have instructed WHO To condemn and warn Madagascar to stop distributing the medication and even to stop claiming that they can treat the virus. The world is in a time of crisis, and it needs all nations to first find an urgent solution to curb the rate of damages whilst looking for permanent solution. If Madagascar was in America their medication would have been approved. As long as it is an African nation and it is regarded as less human, no country will be allowed to use that medication.
WHO instead of being a impartial body are controlled by the powers that be. It is high time that WHO must swallow their pride and ask Madagascar how they made it possible, because in Africa, we love our herbal medicines, it has been saving lives since time immemorial even before the emergence of the sickness itself.
The surprising part is that WHO did not even take the medication to any lab. They just issued a threat to Madagascar and the whole Africa is silent. This silence is obnoxious and disgusting.
It has become clear that Africa will always be looked down upon while other continents jump to experiment their findings on Africans. When it comes to risk lives Africans are taken very fast and led to the laborotories to be slaughtered like beasts. All this time WHO is so silent only to raise it’s ugly head when an African nation has found a cure ahead of the super powers. Africa is stoped by itself to shine. The same World Health Organisation describes traditional medicine, “as the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement, or treatment of physical and mental illness.”
Most traditional medicine systems are pass down from generation to generation through verbal teaching. To date, in some parts of the world, the majority of the population continue to rely on their own traditional medicine to meet their primary health care needs. When adopted outside of it’s traditional culture, traditional medicine is often referred as “complementary and alternative medicine.” Among others, the most widely used traditional medicine systems today include those of China, India, and Africa. African traditional medicine can further be described as a form of holistic health care system organized into three levels of specialty, namely divination, spiritualism, and herbalism.
The traditional healer provides health care services based on culture, religious background, knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs that are prevalent in his community. Illness is regarded as having both natural and supernatural causes and thus must be treated by both physical and spiritual means, using divination, incantations, animal sacrifice, exorcism, and herbs. Herbal medicine is the cornerstone of traditional medicine but may include minerals and animal parts.
Major obstacles to the use of African medicinal plants are their poor quality control and safety. The safety issue is determined by none Africans for Africa. Because of the scorn of the traditional medicine by those who suffer from superiority complex,its’ practices are still shrouded with much secrecy, with few reports or documentations of adverse reactions. African Medicine has a very bright future if viewed in the context of service provision, increase of health care coverage, economic potential, and poverty reduction. Formal recognition and integration of traditional medicine into conventional medicine will hold much promise for the future.
Because Traditional Medicine is frowned upon but most people will use it
and will not record it’s success.
African Traditional Medical Practitioners are tired of being separated from the hospitals and clinics, and looked down upon by the medical establishments, even though they treat a majority of the people in their countries.
Zimbabwe needs to move the health agenda forward with Traditional Medicine Healers, who tend to work in isolation and mainly in rural areas.
WHO is believed to have developed model tools for institutionalising African traditional medicine in health systems”, and offering assistance in developing a national regulatory, legal and policy framework that could make it possible for traditional healers to work within the healthcare system.
How can the Western world take our medicine seriously when we fail to do so ourselves. Maybe the government should establish a separate ministry for traditional healers.
“Research indicates clearly that the two parties work differently. It would be very difficult for traditional practitioners to work under the Ministry of Health because some of the people there do not believe in traditional healing, nothing serious will come from those who criticise our own medicine for the benefit of the Western medicine.
In order for our medicine to be accepted we need to allow Pharmacognosy which is the study about the physical, chemical, biochemical, and biological implications of natural products for medicinal or health benefit purposes, must be allowed to have a thorough understanding of natural products from various sources. Specifically, this area must encompass the study of secondary metabolites, including alkaloids, glycosides, phenolic compounds, tannins, phytosterols, and terpenoids that are derived from nature, and is inclusive of plants as well as marine and terrestrial microbes and animals.
These compounds have potential medicinal applications for the prevention and treatment of numerous conditions and diseases, and may also serve as natural pesticides and herbicides. Recently, Zimbabwe legalised the Medical Cannabis which would see our health system develop and which will bring millions in our economy. Stake holders have garnered new interest pertaining to a sustainable approach to Cannabis and natural product research and drug development, an area now legalised for the benefit of the nation. Although on the Cannabis field some investors pretend to be very clever and try to outsmart their local partners. This happens when people think they are more clever than others.
Drugs of natural origin, which have roots in many medical traditions, are of inordinate significance due to the substantial growth in usage around the world. In addition, nature-based medicines are the topic of increased inquiry in the quest for novel pharmacophores that hold the prospect of enhanced therapy. Corona virus has not moved at a fast rate in Africa than it has done in Europe and China. This should show the world that a cure may be found in Africa.
Instead of accepting our African formula they try to warn Africa from claiming the cure. They then dish out a lot of money to bribe the leaders into silence. There is a COVID – 19 treatment and indeed it must be taken to the lab and developed at a larger scale to benefit everyone. But No the other world which thinks that it has powers to decide who must be sick and who must be well will not give you money if you herald your medication ahead of them.
The award of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 a professor who used African nature drugs to produce nature-based drugs Avermectin and Artemisinin, used in the treatment of infections caused by roundworm parasites and malaria, respectively, underscores such trends, and highlights, in particular, the potential value of naturally derived medicines in targeting neglected tropical diseases. Which means a virus like COVID 19 will be treated in Africa. If we treat this without prejudice a cure from Murehwa in Zimbabwe known as Zumbani and the same Zumbani found in Madagascar will have been taken to laboratories and more lives will have been saved.
What surprises most is the stance taken by WHO. They are refusing to promote Madagascar’s medicine yet the World Health Organization’s 2008 ratification of The Beijing Declaration, was to promote the safe and effective use of traditional and alternative medicines and calls for greater assimilation of these into national health care systems. Issues of quality, safety, efficacy measurements, commercial production, regulation, and ethics of natural drugs should now, more than ever, of paramount importance. Not issues of which country discovered what.
Pharmacognosy has evolved from a descriptive botanical subject to a multidisciplinary field inclusive of continuous advances in cell and molecular biology, ethnobotany, phytotherapy, analytical chemistry, and phytochemistry. It has embraced innovations for functional analysis of molecular targets that aid the development of targeted therapies.
As humans exploit nature’s unique gifts for alleviating disease, this should be achieved with safety, sustainability, and equitable benefit-sharing considerations in mind.
It is high time Africa must stand up and shame the devil. Our medicine should be accepted without segregation or discrimination.
Comments
About Author
