Bridging Tradition and Modern Medicine: Prof. Appiah-Opong Calls for Herbal Integration into Mainstream Healthcare
Prominent research scientists and herbal medicine practitioners have been advised to conduct more of extensive scientific and clinical research to boost acceptation of herbal medicines into formal health systems. Prof. Regina Appiah-Opong, currently a toxicology expert from Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) also mentioned that collecting data, assessing, monitoring, introducing the possibility of adverse effects, and strengthening the trust in using herbal remedies could lead to the improved healthcare level and developing manner for the benefit of the nation in terms of money income.
She said, “Herbs can produce a wide range of unwanted or even serious side effects indicating that it is necessary to have adequate toxicity profile of plant medicines.” Prof. Appiah-Opong delivered her inaugural lecture at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) in Accra, titled “Medicinal Plants: Abundance Natural Resource Endowment: A Golden Opportunity for Harnessing the Natural Resource for the Development of Ghana: The Case of Ghana.
She said that the medicinal plant sector is one of the potentials for the country to earn a good amount of income like unprecedented value of investment with good policies. She also pointed out that plant medicine remains one of the sources of income and employment that provides for millions of people in the developing and the developed world, and stimulating gDPs of countries. The leading consumers of the herbal medicines are the Chinese, French, Germans, Italians, Japanese, Spanish, British and the Americans. In 2023, China exported herbs and other traditional Chinese medicine products getting to a total of $1,150,959.
Demand for ethnopharmaceuticals is also growing in industrialized countries; the World Health Organization stated in 2012 that approximately 68% of the populations in such countries as the United States, Australia, France, and Canada use some form of traditional and complementary medicine, and Japan is the largest consumer of natural medicines per head of the population.
Prof. Appiah-Opong also pointed out that the amount of money accruing from medicinal plants in Ghana remains unknown, but available information indicated that in the herbal markets in the country in 2010, an estimated 951 tonnes of crude herbal medicines worth about $7.8 million was traded. She urged the government to make timely and appropriate investments on research and development, as well standardization but corresponding policy and regulations on those herbal medicines to fill the policy void and propel the growth of the herbal medicine industry.
Under the conservation aspect, she said that it is important to write down indigenous knowledge on plants to ensure that species are preserved as humans use herbs for economic growth. Towards this end she called on an end to be put to human actions such as over – exploitation, haphazard collection, rampant deforestation and disruption of habitats through illegal mining otherwise known as ‘galamsey’.
According to the suggestion of Prof. Appiah-Opong, the government should show direction in the farming of near endangered medicinal plants as well as formulate policies of replanting replaced plants; which is one way of generating employment with regard to SDGs 8 and 9. “With these sustained concerted efforts, Ghana can copy in the international market and produce good revenues from medicinal plants for development,” she summed up appealing to the government, policy makers and parastatals, traditional healers, universities, research stations, and other relevant stakeholders.
