Ministry plans to certify traditional healers and medicines

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health says it is planning to issue accreditation certificates to traditional medicine practitioners as a means of tackling the health gap problem in a country where 47 percent of the population have no health coverage. The head of public relations at the ministry, Ahmed Imano, told the pro-government Walta Information Centre that a traditional medicine-testing department had also been set up with the idea of certifying traditional medicines, as well as their practitioners, as safe. Ahmed said the ministry had requested all traditional healers to submit their products for approval. Meanwhile, the School of Pharmacy at the University of Addis Ababa says it has devised a research and development programme to integrate research activities into traditional medicines. Nigusu Mekonen told Walta that the programme would help develop safe, effective and affordable herbal drugs. "In Ethiopia, modern drugs are in short supply, inaccessible and unaffordable to the vast majority of the population," he said, adding that this left about 80 percent of the population reliant on traditional medicine. Nigusu said that the School of Pharmacy had finalised preparations to secure World Bank loans to help with its research programmes.