QUOTE; " World Health Organization recognizes herbal medicine and her projection is that in the near future, herbal medicine will rule the world in many countries such as Ghana, India, China including Nigeria just to mention a few."
Dr. Alh. Azeez Olasukanmi popularly known as Dr. Qumas. Is the Lagos State Chairman herbal therapy society of Nigeria who hails from Kwara State, with over 30 years of experience in herbal therapy; in this exclusive interview with Flies magazine, Dr. Olasukanmi sheds light on the importanance of herbal medicine to our healthy living
What do we mean by herbal medicine?
Herbal medicine is a product that is very good in treating or curing any kind of ailment in our body for example body diseases, malaria, typhoid, affection related issues etc. Herbal medicine is suitable for any kind of health challenges the reason being that it has no side effects. It is not chemicalized like orthodox medicine. The difference between orthodox medicine and herbal medicine is that the orthodox medicine steps down some organs in our body before it could cure the ailment while herbal medicine is not so, it goes straight to the body system like a fruit to cure the ailment.
Why did you say no side effect in herbal medicine considering the rate at which people take it without measurement?
Like I said before, there is no side effect in herbal medicine simply because these are natural roots unlike the orthodox medicine which are chemicalised.
What is the efficacy of herbal medicine?
The efficacy of herbal medicine is 100% because of the natural materials we use in preparing the medicine and that is why they are called herbal medicine. There is no way one will take herbal medicine and you will not get good results. If a professional herbal practitioner prepares any herbal medicine for you, there is no way you will not get good result.
How do you control fake products in the market?
Thank you, you will agree with me that there is nothing is in this world that has no fake or imitation but what we have actually put in place through our union is a monitoring team who goes around from time to time flushing out the fake ones in the market.
As the Lagos State Herbal Medicine practitioner, how do you sensitize people on the need to patronize herbal medicine?
We have a union called Herbal Therapy Society of Nigeria. What we do is that we advertise through the print and electronic media because without advert no one would know about herbal medicine. Through the advertisement, we educate people on the efficiency of herbal medicine and its usage. Also, we organize various seminars across the state where people get to ask questions about the products. For record purpose, World Health Organization recognizes herbal medicine and her projection is that in the near future, herbal medicine will rule the world in many countries such as Ghana, India, China including Nigeria just to mention a few.
Challenges
Firstly, no access to loan because most of those things we do require a huge capital and the government is not really helping matters. No encouragement from the government by way of setting up of research centers coupled with high taxation. For example India and China governments have established medicinal farm for easy access to the raw materials to produce the herbal medicine and this has really eradicated the need for herbal practitioners to source for funds to set up these farms on their own. Also, we have challenges in the area of spreading the message to the people. What this means is that we want the government to help us create the needed awareness so that people will know the efficacy or the importance of herbal medicine as this is very expensive for an individual to do. We really need serious support from government by way of creating budget for herbal medicine practitioner.
Who prescribes how herbal medicine is taken, is it the doctor or self medication which is very rampant?
Nowadays unlike what it used to be in the past the prescription is written on the body. The quantity, and the number of time on daily basis you are to take, is clearly written on the pack and it has a measurement. One has to follow the usage direction on the pack and not self medication.
Tell us some of the products of herbal medicine you have in the market which are NAFDAC approved
Right now I have three NAFDAC approved products
AZOQ CAPSULE; Azoq capsule is herbal medicine that is very good in curing sexually transmitted infection like staphylococcus, syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes candidaisis etc. Symptoms to observe: itching in the organ, Waist pain, movement in he body, Weakness of the body, pain before and after urinating, Vaginal discharge, Abdominal pain, Mucus discharged etc.
JIMJAD (Pile); Is good for pile, blood stooling, stomach noise, waist pain and pain before and after stooling. It is good for adult and children. .
JIMJAD BITTERS (so natural, very effective); Supports digestion function, nervous system, promotes circulatory system, reduces over weight, relieves constipation, supports liver and kidney function; also good for painful and irregular menstruation.
We have other products of herbal medicine which are yet to be registered by NAFDAC for now this are the ones I have in the market.
How do we differentiate the fake ones from the original?
In our association which is Herbal Therapy Society of Nigeria, most of the herbal medicine in the market are all NAFDAC approved. Though in our society of today one cannot overrule imitation out of the system and it is more or less a phenomenon that dubious persons out there must certainly imitate your products. I will strongly advice the public to be always cautious of the types of herbal medicine they buy, more so when they have no Nafdac registration number. If you must buy the ones without Nafdac registration you must make sure you know the producer of that particular drug well so that you do not buy what will later turn out to be harmful to your health.
Your advice to those who may want to practice herbal medicine
They have to look for a competent practitioner to learn from before they can do anything. In our association, we have various places where we do training and re-training of students; you would have seen a board on the wall when you came in here; it is meant for training. So if you want to become an herbal medicine practitioner, you must first contact our centers. What our centre does is that we will teach you from “A to Z” on how to produce the drugs including packaging to finishing stage.
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