Researchers root for herbal medicine

Aug 31, 2017

“People are dying because of ignorance. We have the plants that can treat these complicated diseases."

Herbal medicine can treat, and even cure, life threatening diseases such as cancer, diabetes and various heart conditions according to researchers and scientists.

Speaking during the 4th annual National Traditional medicine conference held at Hotel African, Dr. Joseph Baguma, the executive director of Theta said that herbal medicine is an important arm of health care in the country, though with a caveat.

"People are dying because of ignorance. We have the plants that can treat these complicated diseases. The belief that the use of herbal medicine is a sign of poverty and backwardness is not right. If our herbalist start doing research and publishing it, many people will not be dying, but people are dying because they have no information," said Baguma.

Baguma also called upon traditional medicine practitioners to stop treating diseases by impression and experience, but to always first do diagnosis to find out what the patient is suffering from.

"Most practitioners convince patients that their drugs can treat like 100 diseases without finding out what the person is suffering from. Diagnosis is very important if you are to treat the right disease and if you fail, you can always recommend the person to try the western medicine. We should stop acting like small gods," said Baguma.

Addressing herbalists, Professor George Kirya, a microbiologist also emphasised diagnosis. He advised herbalists to stop guessing while administering their medicine.

"Some diseases have the same symptoms and signs. So, if you treat by guessing without doing scan, x-ray and taking some blood tests, you might treat a wrong disease with the right medicine. Therefore, for people to have more confidence in your practice, always first do diagnosis," noted Kirya.

However, some herbalist insisted that they can treat their patients without diagnosis because they have the experience.

"Diagnosis takes long, some of us who are far if we refer our patients to Mulago Hospital  to do diagnosis, they will not afford because Mulago is far, it is expensive and it takes time for the results to come out. We shall treat our patients even without diagnosis because we know these things. Our grandparents never had machines, but they treated their patients," said Dr. Yahaya Sekagya, the director of PROMETRA(promotion of traditional medicine).

Prof. Evariste Baruga of Wandegeya research clinic argued that herbalists in their current state are not protected from international manufacturers who easily manipulate them.

"We can live on this earth beyond 100 years because the diseases killing us are few and we have the medicinal plants here in Uganda to treat them, but we are not protected.

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