Lawmakers on Tuesday accused the Nigerian Government of being reluctant to support local herbal practitioners in finding a cure to COVID-19.
The sponsor of the motion, Prestige Ossy, said government was rather comfortable waiting on the World Health Organisation to come up with a vaccine and use the country’s citizens as guinea pigs.
The lawmaker from Abia State referred to three different natural medicine practitioners, whom he said had put-up alleged cures for the virus but had not been given an audience by the Ministry of Health. 
“There is need to encourage and support some of the claims by our local scientists and alternative medical practitioners as some of their claims sounds convincing enough to hazard a trial of the drugs developed by them, after all, it is still the same trial of treatments that WHO is currently engaged in and they have come out to support the breakthrough from Madagascar so why not try Nigerian remedies as well?” Ossy is quoted as asking.
The House agreed that there was the need to test the cures reported by the herbal practitioners in order to ascertain their efficacy.
The House of Representatives mandated its Committee on Health to work with relevant government agencies to ensure that locally developed remedies for the treatment of COVID-19 are included in the clinical trials by the World Health Organisation under its “solidarity initiative.”
Minster for Health, Osagie Ehanire, has maintained that anyone who has a cure should reach out to either the National Pharmaceutical Institute of Research Development, NAFDAC or the ministry’s traditional or complementary medicine department to process their remedies.
