A non-governmental organisation, Movement for Fundamental Change, has called on the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to begin investigations into local claims for the treatment of novel coronavirus.
The Head of Policy Positions of the organisation, Chief Martin Onovo, made the call in a statement on Friday in Lagos.
According to Onovo, COVID-19 has been treated easily by some people across the world, using home remedies.
He said that Madagascar, Ghana and Senegal had all shown remarkable capacity to contain COVID-19 with local remedies.
Onovo said that Nigeria should list such claims if found useful.
“These claims include Pax Herbal’s CVD Plus, the Ooni of Ife’s remedies, Prof. Maurice Iwu’s product and Ben Amodu’s drug.
“It is for NAFDAC to confirm the safety of the remedies and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control to test their effectiveness with volunteer COVID-19 patients,” he said.
Onovo said that successful products from Nigeria would establish another source of foreign exchange ‘in this period of low crude oil prices’.
Onovo urged the government to support Madagascar to obtain African and global acceptance for its COVID-19 remedy in line with the country’s foreign policy focus.
He said that Madagascar had not recorded any COVID-19-related death, adding that the mortality rate in Ghana was only 0.6 per cent because the people were using local remedies to fight the virus.
Onovo said that COVID-19 was not death sentence and could easily be prevented and cured.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has directed NAFDAC to begin the procedure for listing of a new herbal formulation to fight against novel coronavirus.
The directive is contained in a circular entitled, “Formulation of A Phyto Medicine-Based Cough Mixture /Syrup For the Management of COVID-19 Patients”.
It was issued by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Abdulaziz Abdullahi.
It said that the formulation was the brainchild of the Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine Department. NAN
