140 million Nigerians rely on traditional medicine for health coverage – NNMDA DG

The Director-General (DG) of Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency (NNMDA), Prof. Martin Emeje, said that no fewer than 140 million Nigerians depend on traditional medicine to access health coverage in Nigeria.

In an interview with newsmen yesterday, Emeje said traditional medicine is not universal or allopathic, but culture-based, with 140 million Nigerians having access to it for cure and healing.

He described Traditional medicine as the core of health care delivery across Nigeria and most African countries, helping to achieve universal health care.

According to him, Traditional medicine must be zeroed down to things that make them different in each environment because it is not a universal medicine.

“It is not universal medicine but must be zeroed down to things that make them different in each environment.

“No fewer than 140 million Nigerians depend on traditional medicine to access health coverage in Nigeria.

“It is culture-based because different soil components of an environment and attitude of a community could be used as a healing process.

“Traditional medicine has been the core of health care delivery across Nigeria and most African countries, helping to achieve universal health care.

“Traditional medicine also has different medicinal properties.

“It is not universal medicine but must be zeroed down to things that make them different in each environment”, he said.

ALSO READ: Ebonyi: Reps member launches medical outreach for constituents

According to him, when it is studied, there is need to apply science and technology to harness or exploit it to the nation’s advantage.

The director-general said that it would be to the nation’s advantage if traditional medicine was harnessed optimally, because science and technology could be applied therein, to develop those things in a form that would be more beneficial to our people.

“The benefit that our people have is that in our local communities, people are cured, people are healed, people are tended to by the traditional medical practitioners and they do not have any economic benefit, which is not good enough.

“It is our responsibility to educate the traditional medicine practitioners, but before we do that, we must also make it clear that there is need to apply science and technology to develop all of that to reap the benefit.

“If the nation should focus on it to develop traditional medicine in different local governments, there would be at least 100 different traditional recipes, processes and services in each local government,” he noted.

READ MORE FROM: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE