COVID-19 AND AFRICAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINES

Abstract

Any pandemic outbreak is a global health emergency that requires efficient and viable approaches to manage and contain. The usual scientific response to the health crisis is to search for scientific vaccines to combat a novel pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been in the front line of championing scientific solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Claims by some African countries to have discovered herbal remedies for COVID-19 have been met with scathing remarks by the WHO that is demanding scientific publications for causal explanations of alleged curative COVID-19 herbal drugs. But a developer/discoverer of a COVID-19 herbal remedy that has been clinically tested and certified to be effective in treating and managing COVID-19 may be unable to offer through publications scientific explanations of its causal efficacy at the time of its discovery. The aim of this paper is to argue for approval of COVID-19 herbal medicines by health authorities in African countries on pragmatic grounds. The method of analysis is employed to argue that some African traditional medicines have immune boosting capability. Research shows that though herbal drugs are no substitute for synthetic drugs/vaccines that are yet to be developed, they are effective in boosting the body's innate immune system which is necessary for combating the novel coronavirus at its early stage in the human system. This paper recommends that health authorities in African countries should develop and legitimize their own efficient validation systems for evaluating the safety and efficacy of African traditional medicines for management and treatment of COVID-19 and other virulent diseases in Africa, while waiting for the development of COVID-19 synthetic vaccines.