Coronavirus: WHO Africa wants to evaluate the effectiveness of herbal remedies
An artemisia plant.
(Illustration) Creative Commons
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
Faced with the number of traditional remedies that have emerged on the African continent to treat Covid-19, WHO Africa and Africa CDC (African Union Center for Disease Prevention and Control) are launching a scientific protocol to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of these herbal treatments against the coronavirus.
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There was
Covid-Organics
, an artemisia-based herbal tea in Madagascar, neem trees in Ivory Coast or even “kongo bololo” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), also called Ndolé in Cameroon and Gabon : Traditional remedies have abounded since the start of the
Covid-19
pandemic
on the African continent.
But the efficacy and safety of these remedies are still controversial.
“
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been proposals here and there to use traditional medicine to treat patients
(against Covid-19).
In some countries, we have even gone so far as to test the effectiveness of these products.
This has created a lot of controversy both on the continent and outside, to stop all this,
”explains Jean-Baptiste Nikiema, in charge of drugs deemed essential at
WHO Africa.
"
The door is not closed
"
WHO and the African Union's Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Africa CDC, are therefore setting up a scientific protocol to carry out clinical trials of these herbal drugs to fight the coronavirus.
"
It was the duty of the WHO to provide its expertise to raise the level of testing and ensure that the result at the end is indisputable,
" he explains.
This is a real roadmap for conducting ethical, rigorous clinical trials and whether or not to prove the effectiveness of traditional medicine against Covid-19.
"
The door is not closed because there have been other diseases where traditional medicine has largely contributed
(to the fight against diseases)
on the continent so why not in the case of Covid-19
", concludes Jean- Baptiste Nikiema before adding that for this, "
we need rigorous scientific procedures which respect certain standards
".
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Coronavirus
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