The University of Medical Sciences, Ondo State has said the creation of an herbal medicine centre will deepen the research on local plants to cure various ailments.
The institution, however, noted that the result of various researches on the plants and local herbs may not come as soon as people think.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Adesegun Fatusi, said this in an interview with journalists in his office.
Adesegun said it was unfortunate that Nigerians have not been able to able to carry out thorough research on herbal medicine.
He said the university had established its centre for herbal medicine to work towards providing solutions to herbal medicine problem.
He said, “The problem with Nigeria herbal medicine is that we have not focused on sufficient scientific research. So, one of the things that have been done in the Nigerian herbal sector, is also the one that we have been doing, the way our fathers had been doing it. No measure, no dosage and we use those drugs. No drug in the scientific world work that way, every drug must have a clear indicator. There is no drug that solves all problems, unfortunately, those selling drugs in a public bus in Lagos will pick one drug and say it will cure 30 ailments.
“Our approach is to subject them to scientific rigor and identify what are the active ingredients of the drug. If you have a plant, it is possible, it does many things but active ingredients that work for one may not work for the other. So, what science does is to extract the component that works for each separately and package it and that is why those scientific research are not something you start now and get the result quickly.
“They are work that accumulated for months and sometimes years to do. But if you look at the picture across the world, you will know that the greatest discovery they have made about drugs.”.
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