The Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency (NNMDA) on Tuesday said that, in 2025, it would improve research of traditional medicine in the country by building a traditional medicine database.
The Director-General, NNMDA, Prof. Martins Emeje, made this known in his presentation, “The Media as Natural Medicine Ambassador” at a media parley in Lagos.
Emeje said that, hitherto, there had been no proper documentation and review of processes of traditional medicine in Nigeria, but that would change in the coming year.
He said further that training of traditional medicine practitioners and tackling anti-microbial resistance were also key projections for 2025.
“Another key projection of the agency is the review and documentation of Nigeria’s biodiversity. This is all in the bid to improve research of traditional medicine in the country,” he said.
Emeje said that tackling antimicrobial resistance would be a key part of the NNMDA activities in the coming year.
“The researchers in the agency wrote competitive proposals and won grants to tackle antimicrobial resistance in Nigeria.
“The grant is for a project that shall be embarked upon in 2025.
“Henceforth, when we get funding for a proposal, we shall use the funds for the particular area we got it for. We will identify medicinal plants and the disease prevalent in that area, and cultivate the medicinal plant to cure that prevailing disease.
“We will develop that locality by making medicinal products for the people of that area, so that gradually people will begin to feel and know that you do not need to wait for any foreign organisation to give medicinal aid to Nigeria,’’ he said.
Emeje stressed that every medicinal aid that Nigerians needed were all in their backyards, and could be developed into products.
He said that the agency would also be taking livestock diseases very seriously in 2025.
The NNMDA boss said that the agency had requested the National Assembly to make funds available for capacity building in livestock development.
“Looking beyond the approval of fund for capacity building, we are already partnering with two countries, Netherlands and India, on development of herbal medicines for livestock diseases in Nigeria,” he said.
Emeje noted that snake bite was a huge problem in Nigeria, especially in Katungu, Gombe State, saying that the location was the center point for venomous snakes in Nigeria.
He explained that the NNMDA was concerned about this, and believed it could facilitate a cure for the snake bites.
Emeje said: “We are looking at this incidence of snake bite very seriously, and have received approval to develop cures for it, once there is funding it shall be deployed immediately.
‘’We look at every disease as insecurity; we are fortunate that in our own research and development model, we have weapons of mass destruction of diseases.”
He noted that countries are driven by research, science, technology, and innovation.
The NNMDA boss recalled that one of the agency’s achievements in 2024 was coming first in the application of nanotechnology in developing indigenous herbal products for treatment of cholera. (NAN)
