National Association of Nigeria Traditional Medicine Practitioners (NANTMP) has said the profession has been infiltrated by quacks, saying the development portrays traditional medicine in a bad light.
National President of the association, Shaba Maikudi, who spoke at the 3rd executive council meeting yesterday in Abuja, said quacks dish out wrong prescription and drugs, making users of herbs to be sceptical when confronted with original drugs.
To nip the problem in the bud, he appealed to the National Assembly to speedily pass the bill to establish the council of traditional medicine dealers, and empower it to weed out quacks. While the bill is still pending, he said a committee has been set up to aggressively launch a campaign against fake traditional drugs.
“We have set up a committee to weed out quacks. What we need is to create awareness for our members across the country to understand the effect of selling fake drugs.
“There is a bill before the National Assembly that it should establish the traditional medicine council of Nigeria. If the bill is passed, I think most of our problems would be addressed. We want a law to regulate our practice.
“We are appealing to the Federal Government to help establish the council for traditional medicine dealers. We want all the states to have traditional medicine board that will regulate the practice of traditional medicine so that our people will meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard of our products,” he said.
Aside collaborating with National Agency for Food, and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to see that herbal drugs are marketed outside the country, Maikudi, they generate over N70 million monthly from drug sales with a member strength of 15 million practitioners.