The Director-General of the Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency, Prof Martins Emeje, says the agency has developed 23 new natural medicines, including remedies for diarrhoea, peptic ulcers, and hepatitis B.\n<\/p>\n
Emeje, a professor of Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine, disclosed this at the agency\u2019s public accountability programme in Lagos to mark two years of his stewardship as the DG of NNMDA, in line with the presidential directive for ministries and agencies to report their achievements.\n<\/p>\n
He explained that the latest developments surpassed the 11 new products the agency had earlier promised for the year, bringing the total number of new natural medicines ready for launch to 23.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this year, we did not only make 11, as we promised, but\u2014as we always surpass our targets\u2014we have an additional 17, which makes it 23 products that we have ready for launching,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to the DG, the new range of herbal products include those targeting sickle cell, diabetes, immune boosting, anti-aging, peptic ulcer, and diarrhoea.\n<\/p>\n
The don stressed the significance of the diarrhoea remedy, describing it as a particularly emotional project.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so, in addition to the products for sickle cell, for diabetes, for immune boosting, and anti-aging\u2014which were launched by the minister last year\u2014this year, we now have products that are available for peptic ulcer and diarrhoea. And that of diarrhoea\u2014which is a child killer disease\u2014is very close to our hearts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are emotional about it because we did not just develop a product for diarrhoea, we actually went out to compete with scientists from all over Nigeria at a national scientific meeting, and we took the first position. Diarrhoea is a child-killer disease. So we developed that product.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Emeje revealed that the Federal Government, through the National Assembly, had recognised the importance of the innovation by allocating funding to further develop the anti-diarrhoea drug in the 2025 budget.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, let me also tell you that the National Assembly of Nigeria, in the 2025 budget, actually gave us money to further develop that anti-diarrhoea product,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the sweet thing about it is that the product comes from the application of nanotechnology in developing that anti-diarrhoea medicine from our plant. So peptic ulcer, diarrhoea\u2014these are two serious diseases\u2014and hepatitis B. Those products are available within this compound as I\u2019m talking to you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Emeje noted that although the agency was established in 1997, it had recently transformed its productivity and institutional culture. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow, this agency has existed since 1997, but this is a turnaround agency in terms of productivity and attitude,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
He also shed light on the agency\u2019s focus areas, stressing that its work is deeply rooted in agricultural resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those of you who don\u2019t know much about our agency, let me just tell you: we work in three major areas. Agriculture\u2014everything we work on is standing on agriculture, whether it\u2019s plants, animals, soil, or marine life,\u201d he explained.\n<\/p>\n
According to him, the NNMDA has broken ground in exploring non-conventional sources of medicine.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe develop medicine from soil here. We develop medicine from plants here. We develop medicine from the water here. We develop medicine from insects here.\u00a0 In fact, one of our most expensive medicines is obtained from the spine of fish,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
At the event, the NNMDA introduced a new malaria prevention kit comprising Amarus herbal tea and anti-malaria herbal mosquito repellent cream among others.\n<\/p>\n
According to the World Health Organisation, Hepatitis is caused by a viral infection or non-infectious agents such as drugs, toxins, or alcohol.\n<\/p>\n
The WHO noted that there are five main strains of the hepatitis virus \u2013 A, B, C, D, and E, saying that together, hepatitis B and C are the most common infections.\n<\/p>\n
The global health body added that hepatitis B and C result in 1.3 million deaths and 2.2 million new infections per year.<\/p>\n
Also, Nigeria HIV-AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey, 2018, estimated that Nigeria has a prevalence rate of 8.1 and 1.1 per cent for Hepatitis B infection and Hepatitis C infection among adults aged 15 to 64 years respectively.\n<\/p>\n
The survey added that over 20 million Nigerians are living with hepatitis B, C, or both; yet over 80 per cent of the people do not know their status.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Director-General of the Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency, Prof Martins Emeje, says the agency has developed 23…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[63079,105,4326,5769,63080,16,63081,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-146696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-diarrhoea","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-medication","11":"tag-medicines","12":"tag-nnmda","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-ulcer","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114602257066164767","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}