More doctors enrolling for traditional medicine training – institute

Officials at the Kampala-based Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Institute (NCRI) have said they are seeing more qualified medical professionals enrolling for the course on traditional medicine as integration of modern and traditional medicine takes shape.
“Our students are people who are practicing.  We have medical people. I'm happy that every year we get medical people. We nurses, doctors, and clinicians enrolling; they want to diversify. That is integration,” Dr Francis Omujal, a senior researcher at NCRI said on Monday.
According to Dr Omujal, the curriculum was developed by NCRI along with the Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT) under the Ministry of Education.
“The issue of capacity building is a big agenda to transform the [health] sector. Right now we have one curriculum that covers levels one, two and three. At each level, they are taught how to grow, how to process and how to manufacture in a standard format,” he explained.
Dr Omujal was addressing journalists in Kampala ahead of the October 10 African Traditional Medicine Day conference at the Makerere University School of Public Health auditorium. 
Traditional medicine, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), is the sum of the knowledge, skills and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health and the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness.
Research reports by Maud Kamatenesi-Mugisha and others put the prevalence of the use of traditional/herbal medicines in the country at 70-80 per cent, indicating a huge market.
Many people use herbal or traditional medicine because it is accessible, affordable and culturally familiar, according to the WHO.
However, lack of adherence to good manufacturing practice (GMP), poor regulatory measures and adulteration may also lead to adverse events in their use, according to a 2017 report by Merlin Mensah.
Dr Grace Nambatya Kyeyune, the Director of Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Institute (NCRI), said through the training and laboratory services for analysing herbal medicines, the quality of products is improving.
“If you look at a new crop of medical doctors we're having, we are overwhelmed by them coming in and wanting to do this and science, technology and innovation under the Officer of the President is giving out funds if you want to showcase that this [herbal product] is safe and can work as a complementary [medicine],” she said.
“And one day, we shall not be talking of complementary, we shall talk of alternative, but at the moment, we cannot afford [to say] alternative [medicine] in Uganda because we don't have those validation results,” she added.
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