01 Dec 2019

Government is working around the clock to enact legal instruments to regulate traditional health practice and to ensure the protection of natural resources.

The Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Lemogang Kwape said this at the African Traditional Medicine symposium last week in Gaborone.

He said that the importance of traditional medicine in the health care delivery could not be overemphasized as it dates back from long time ago.

Dr Kwape said he was aware that Botswana did not have guidelines that could assist the country to effectively appraise traditional medicines.

He said as such, there was lack of the requisite knowledge of their properties, as well as their safety and efficacy.Dr Kwape said it was evident that in recent years there had been an increase in the global interest in traditional, complementary and alternative medicine.

He said herbal medicines, which were used in African traditional medical practice, provided the basis for modern drug development in a number of ways.

“Our natural products such as Moringa and Monepenepe have drawn attention of various admires, it is necessary therefore to protect these, while equally undertaking relevant research in collaboration with Institutions of higher learning and traditional health practitioners,” he said.The minister said in 1976 the World Health Assembly acknowledged the potential value of traditional medicine in expanding health services.He said that was done by calling attention to the manpower reserve which constituted traditional health practitioners, through its resolution World Health Assembly (WHA) 29.72.He said the following year, a Health Assembly resolution WHA 30.49 urged counties to utilise their traditional system of medicine.

Furthermore, he said another resolution, WHA 31.33 was passed in 1978, in which the organisation was called upon to develop a comprehensive approach to the subject of medicinal plants.

“In 1987, the 40th World Health Assembly through resolution WHA 40.33, reaffirmed the main points of the earlier resolutions, as well as related recommendations, made at the International Conference on Primary Health Care, held in Alma-Ata, USSR, in 1978,” he said.

Dr Kwape said in 1988 there was a Chiang Mai declaration which aimed to ‘Save plants that Save Lives’, adding this was ultimately given recognition and endorsed by 41st World Health Assembly, which called for International cooperation and coordination to establish a basis for the conservation of medicinal plants. He said the stated resolutions by various World Health Assemblies, buttress the significance of traditional medicine in the health care delivery systems.

The WHO, to this end, he said developed various guidelines and model instruments for institutionalising African Traditional Medicine in the health care system. ENDS