While the health system play down the potency of traditional medicine in treating COVID-19, individuals share unortodox remedies, their knowledge, and lived-in experience.
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- Ooni of Ife, Oba, Dr. Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi revealed a treatment, “herbs including neem, bitter leaf and African pepper”
- Seyi Makinde, the Governor of Oyo state, said he boosted his immunity with Vitamin C, carrots and black seed oil mixed with honey.
- Dr. Johnson Idowu, traditional medicine practitioner says there are indigenous plants with strong anti-viral and radio-protective properties that can serve as a portent cure for COVID-19.”
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Like the 1918 Spanish flu which killed fifty million people globally, 100 years later, the world is again struck by a pandemic — COVID-19, halting social activities, ravaging global commerce which presages a global economic recession and deluging health systems of many countries with patients and mortalities which according to a global tally by the John Hopkins University there are over 1.5 million cases, 372,000 recoveries, and death toll surpassing 100,000.
The lack of vaccine, though there are over 68 vaccine projects going on worldwide, and the upsurge in the cases of COVID-19 patients have made health workers at the front-lines to resort to trying existing drugs meant to cure other ailments to treat the viral disease.
The treatment of symptoms while hoping the patient’s immune system fights back, an approach that has been described by some as mere bet on luck, prompting them to tout the use of traditional medicine or local solutions.
As cases of COVID-19 increase in Nigeria two influential people have been at the fore of promoting the use of traditional medicine to combat the viral infection.
The Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi, a prominent Yoruba King in the southwest of the country, said on his verified Instagram page that he had a tested cure for COVID-19. The monarch listed 8 herbs including neem, bitter leaf and African pepper.
His claims kindled controversy. While some asked the government to verify the claims of the monarch, others taunted him. A twitter user called for the arrest of the king. Another Nigerian, said, “they will believe in Ooni’s cure if it was proposed by a white man.”
On the same day, the King made the claim, Seyi Makinde, the Governor of Oyo state, southwest Nigeria announced he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was already self-isolating. Barely seven days later, he announced he had tested negative. The governor later revealed on a radio show that he boosted his immunity to fight coronavirus by consuming Vitamin C, carrots and black seed oil mixed with honey.
“We are looking at local solutions,” Mr. Makinde said after testing negative for COVID-19. “I know that a lot of people have been calling me all sorts of names on social media but, from experience, one thing that I know you have to do to conquer the virus is that you boost your immunity.”
“We do have local solutions and, of course, we have to defer to experts’ opinion as part of the home-grown solution to deal with COVID-19.”
However, the idea of trying local solutions in treating COVID-19 does not seem to be part of the plan of the Nigerian government. Although the drug used to treat COVID-19 patients is not known, Nigeria like many African countries with abundant traditional medicine knowledge awaits the development of a vaccine by Western countries.
“The government is paying lip-service to the development of traditional medicine in Nigeria,” Dr. Johnson Idowu, traditional medicine practitioner and the executive director of the Research Institute of Traditional and Alternative Medicine told The West African Pilot News. “This is why we have a situation where we are waiting for the vaccines western countries are battling to produce. Blackseed is not indigenous to Nigeria. We have indigenous plants with strong anti-viral and radio-protective properties that can serve as a portent cure for COVID-19.”
Dr. Idowu who developed a herbal detox tea whose properties have been evaluated and published in a peer-reviewed journal said Nigeria was losing a lot by not implementing laws that dictate the incorporation of traditional medicine in the health system of the country.
In addition to poor implementation of laws, other problems that have left traditional medicine underdeveloped are poor funding, weak political will and opposition from cynics who are either promoters of western medicine or devotees of certain religions who associate traditional medicine to ‘evil’.
In China, traditional medicine enjoys the support of the government. A Chinese lung-clearing and detoxing soup remedy which has over 20 herbs, including cinnamon twigs and licorice root, alongside western medicine is promoted by the authorities to combat COVID-19.
Although traditional medicine has a large support base in China, its critics abound both at home and abroad. Some say that the criticisms Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) get from western-based skeptics as regards TCM use in COVID-19 patients’ treatment is influenced by the diplomatic rivalry and mutual suspicion between the Asian power and Western countries.
Reacting to the use of TCM in treating COVID-19 patient, Dr. Edzard Ernst, a professor emeritus of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter in the UK, was cited by NBC to have said that “TCM mixtures can be toxic, contaminated or adulterated with prescription drugs; they can also interact with prescription drugs.”
Dan Larhammar, a molecular cell biologist and president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said many academic journals that published the research results of the efficacy of traditional treatments of COVID-19, “are like parodies, nobody can take this seriously. Adding that these studies and others like them lack scientific rigour.”
However, Feng Yibin, acting Director of the School of Chinese Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, quoted by CNN, said the prescription was adopted after showing desirable results and was based on four herbal formulas from ancient China, with one dating back as far as 1,800 years ago.
More than 85% of all coronavirus patients in China about 60,000 people – had received herbal remedies alongside orthodox anti-viral drugs, according to the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.
“Traditional Chinese medicine has played an active role in improving the recovery rate and lowering the fatality rate among patients,” Gao Xiaojun, spokesperson for the Beijing Health commission told journalists at a press conference.
The Chinese authorities recognise the revenue creation potential of the traditional medicine industry. China’s State Council estimated last year that the TCM industry could exceed 3 trillion yuan ($430 billion) by 2020 – 71% increase from 2017, according to CNN.
Some say the support traditional medicine gets from the state has ensured it thrives. Chinese President Xi Jinping, a proponent of TCM, last October said, “traditional medicine is a treasure of Chinese civilization embodying the wisdom of the nation and its people.”
As the viral infection began to spread, President Xi in January at a meeting of the country’s supreme ruling body, called on medical experts at the frontline of the country’s battle against the outbreak “to combine Chinese and western medicine in the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19.”
The Chinese authorities recognise the revenue creation potential of the traditional medicine industry. China’s State Council estimated last year that the TCM industry could exceed 3 trillion yuan ($430 billion) by 2020 – 71% increase from 2017, according to CNN.
The government is also seeking to include the promotion of TCM in its global infrastructure and investment programme, the Belt and Road Initiative.
A juxtaposition of traditional medicine industries in Nigeria and China shows two countries, each on either side of a spectrum. While one country has been able to develop its culture, depend partly on it as a weapon against infectious disease and build it into a multi-billion-dollar industry, the other seems to have dumped the development of its traditional medicine industry to adopt western medicine and religion. A move which some say has reduced traditional medicine to a ‘forgotten solution in a jar on the shelf’.
“Yes we need to look inwards and develop our own health system,” Joshua Damshit, a Pharmacist in Plateau State told WAP news. “Traditional medicines are good but only if the practitioners would subject them for test on efficacy and safety for use.”
Mr. Damshit added that the country would benefit if traditional medicine and western medicine were harmonised. He said initiatives such as centres of excellence in phyto medicine prove that Nigeria is working on developing the traditional medicine industry.
But the major problems of research institutes in Nigeria is underfunding and weak political will to invest in the commercialization of discoveries. Sectors such as education, science and technology, and health in Nigeria have been poorly-funded for years. Many of them are not getting up to 10% of the total budgetary allocation.
Some have said that Nigeria’s two major religions – Christianity and Islam – who see traditional knowledge and wisdom as inferior and evil, have contributed to the dearth of traditional medicine in the country.
But ancient religion historians explain that both early Muslims and Christians borrowed what made up their medicine practice from the traditional knowledge and wisdom of their domain.
While early muslim medicine drew on traditional practices from the region, some dating back to ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Babylon, early Christians only contributed in the area of medical philanthropy, early medical practices were borrowed from their Greek and Roman neighbours.
Some people have wondered whether other African countries would follow the steps of Ethiopia by requesting herbal recipes from China to fight COVID-19.
“I think we have a problem of low self-esteem in Africa and Nigeria, which makes us see what we have as bad until the oyinbos (westerners) tell us otherwise,” Mrs. Adejuwon, a tertiary institution lecturer told WAP news in a phone interview. “We don’t rate our tradition in this part of the world. Bad behavior cuts across all aspect of our lives. Remember the time some Nigerian words were added to the Oxford dictionary? Everyone was proud and happy. Initially, you would be seen as an illiterate if you used them.”
“For hundreds of years, Africans have had herbs that work better for things like flu, coughs and fever,” Sarah Tembo, a Zambia-based entrepreneur told the West African Pilot News via an online messaging platform. “They may not be scientifically proven, but the fact that they worked for the people is enough evidence.”
Ms Tembo said most Africans would not use traditional medicines even if they work because for them, what comes out of Africa is not good enough.
“So I feel like there are so many effective things, it’s just that we just don’t love ourselves,” she opined.
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