Minister seeks degree programmes in herbal medicine | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
30th August 2019
The Minister of State for Health,  Adeleke Mamora, has challenged Nigerian universities to introduce a Bachelor’s degree programme in herbal medicine for better healthcare delivery.
Mr Mamora made the call at a news conference to commemorate the 2019 African Traditional Medicine Day in Abuja on Friday.
With the theme for the 2019 event was “Integrating Traditional Medicine in Health Sciences Curricular in the African Region,” the African Traditional Medicine day is celebrated on 31st August annually.
The event also marked the unveiling of the ministry’s report on curriculum development for the training of herbal medical practitioners and medical schools.
The former lawmaker appealed to the Nigerian universities to incorporate modules of herbal medicine in their curricula of health sciences, adding that this could be achieved with support from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
He urged agencies and departments working on traditional medicine in the country to collaborate with one another for the development of the sector.
He said the ultimate goal of the government in the sector was to derive maximum economic benefits from traditional medicine like China, and India.
The minister urged state governments and the Federal Capital Territory to establish traditional medicine departments for healthcare development.
Mamora suggested that such a department should be complementary to medicine department to provide opportunities for rapid development and integration of traditional medicine into the healthcare delivery system.
He said the ministry was working on a traditional and complementary medicine bill to be submitted to the executive for approval and forwarding to the National Assembly for passage.
On his part, the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Abubakar Rasheed said the commission would collaborate with the ministry to improve the knowledge of undergraduates of health sciences on traditional medicine.