In the busy Sango Ota market, in the Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State, Mrs Ayoni Oladipo graciously showcased her array of herbal products. Across the wooden table in front of her shop were plastic bottles of different shapes labelled according to the ailments they were prepared to cure.

Weekly, clients from the area and other towns and cities visited the shop of the Osogbo indigene whose knowledge of herbal concoctions she admitted was learnt from her mother.

The 41-year-old woman was in a cheery mood when Saturday PUNCH visited her shop on Tuesday morning and asked for herbal mixtures to treat diarrhoea and malaria.

“I get much patronage and I have clients even outside Ogun State. People come to me from Lagos, Ibadan, and even Abuja. They contact me for a variety of reasons and request herbs to cure diarrhoea, back pains, and general body weakness,” Oladipo said with a genuine grin that evinced happiness and sincerity.

When our correspondent expressed some scepticism about the efficacy of herbal products, Oladipo gave some instances to accentuate the potency of her herbal preparations.

She explained, “Just recently, they called me to help a white man around here whom we call ‘Baba Mighty.’ He works in a company not too far from here but he came down with a stroke.

Sunday PUNCH gathered that an increasing number of Nigerians are turning to herbal medicines and alternative therapies with the rise in prices of modern drugs, some of which are imported.

Popularly known among the Yoruba as ‘elewe omo,’ traditional healers are known to sell plant-based herbs to clients to cure a wide range of illnesses that affect infants, children, and adults.

According to data from the International Drug Centre, drug prices are set to remain high in 2024 as import prices of pharmaceutical products may hit over N900bn due to the depreciation of the naira.

This has been said to further mount pressure on Nigerians who grappled with high drug prices in 2023 since the country imports most of its pharmaceutical products from India, China, Malaysia, Netherlands, and Belgium.

In August 2023, a pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria Plc, disclosed intentions to cease its operations within the country and shift towards employing a third-party direct distribution model for its pharmaceutical products.

Three months after GSK made the announcement, a French pharmaceutical multinational, Sanofi, also announced its plans to exit and adopt a third-party distribution model in the country. It stated that its third-party distributor would begin to handle its commercial portfolio of medicines in February 2024.

Since then, according to SBM Intelligence, the cost of drugs has surged above 100 per cent in sync with Nigeria’s biting inflation and foreign exchange crisis which have put a strain on businesses and consumers, including the pharmaceutical industry.

Consequently, more citizens have found themselves seeking solace in the curative powers of traditional herbs which they consider to be more accessible and cheaper than orthodox medicine.

An Ibadan-based chef, Taiwo Divine, in a chat with our correspondent, admitted that he now relies fully on herbal concoctions which he said meet his family’s health needs.

“Whenever people tell me that herbs don’t work, I always point out to them that orthodox medicines also do not always work. I once had malaria and took an anti-malaria tablet, yet I felt no relief until I took a herb prepared for me by a family friend to treat fever and it worked.

“Now, if you want to treat malaria, you will spend about N3,000 whereas it used to be N1,400 a few years ago. This is not sustainable at any level, so I would prefer to take traditional medicine than waste money on Western medicine that might not even work for me,” Divine stated.

Expressing the same sentiment, a marketer at a Lagos-based firm, Treasure Etteh, said the hike in the cost of modern medicine had made him embrace herbs.

He noted, “I now take herbs whenever I feel symptoms of illness. I don’t like taking injections and with the price of drugs now, it’s not affordable. How much is my salary that I’d be spending so much on medications?

“I have a trusted herb seller around here that I patronise because I am not used to taking it initially; I’m adjusting to it. The seller often mixes some of the herbs with soft drinks to make them more palatable for me.”

“There are many diseases that Western medicines can’t cure such as a stroke, hepatitis, diabetes, Herpes Simplex Virus, Human Papillomavirus, and gonorrhoea. My mother has been using herbs to save lives since the 1990s.

“This is an area that the country needs to patronise well to attain wellness and complement Western medicine.”

A medical doctor and Chief Executive Officer of Lifebox Labs, Dr Olusina Ajidahun, in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, explained that with the skyrocketing prices of drugs and poverty in the country, many patients are unable to afford orthodox medicines.

He stated, “Some medicines that used to cost N5,000 or N8,000 have even gone up to N40,000. Essential medical supplies like asthmatic inhalers, and antibiotics, among many, have also gone up.

“It’s so bad that when patients come to the hospital, a lot of them can’t afford these drugs because there is huge poverty in the land, so many people turn to unorthodox medicine.

“Unorthodox medicines are very cheap, affordable, and everywhere, but, unfortunately, patients don’t follow up their treatment by coming to the hospital. We cannot deny that more people are beginning to embrace herbs; it’s something we can’t stop.

“The big question is: are herbs in their entirety dangerous? The answer to that is no. A lot of drugs are plant-based even if some are synthesised in laboratories, so herbs have a potential benefit for therapy and treating diseases.”

“With about 80 per cent of the rural population using traditional medicine as a primary form of health care, traditional medicine has made an invaluable contribution to the health and well-being of all.

 “Studies have shown that traditional medicine use in Nigeria is as high as 81.6 per cent, and this is not expected to be on the decline shortly, especially in the face of the predicted increase in the global burden of diseases,” he said.

However, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said member states needed to scale up efforts to implement evidence-based traditional medicine approaches to achieve health-related Sustainable Development Goals and promote health and well-being for all at all ages.

“Establish a high-level consultative mechanism with indigenous knowledge holders to guarantee their full participation and consultation in adopting and implementing relevant policies and actions associated with biodiversity management and traditional knowledge.

“Facilitate effective integration of traditional medicine into national health systems contributing to achieving universal health coverage and all health-related sustainable development goals,” she added.

The Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, in one of its stated objectives on its website sighted by our correspondent, disclosed that it would preserve cultural heritages with respectable traditional practitioners through the integration of tradition and alternative medicine with orthodox medicine.

 One of the objectives, according to the ministry is “to see the practice of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicines in Nigeria become respected modes of treatment, preserving our cultural heritage with respectable practitioners and providers, delivering quality healthcare to all Nigerians, and benefiting from their economic potential”.

“So, whether we study them or not, for many different socio-economic and ethnocultural reasons, people would use these plants. So, it’s now left for us scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders to ensure that our people safely use these things and that our people fully understand how they work. So, in that vein, herbal medicines are chests of knowledge waiting to be explored.

“For example, people in the past have used lemon grass leaf extract to treat flu and other upper respiratory tract infections. So as a scientist, I can say that when I extract lemon grass, I want to see what activity it has that has made it useful over the years for treating upper respiratory tract infections and then see if this activity is significant enough for us to standardise that practice of using lemon grass extract,” he said.

“I could look at the anti-viral activity of the plant extract against the influenza virus, nasal congestion, and cough suppression. When I do that and I find that this plant does these things, it would provide a reason for why it has been efficacious over the years.

“We will conduct more research to identify that particular phytochemical that has this activity, we can purify the extract to exclude other phytochemicals that might have side effects. This demonstrates how herbal medicine can be of clinical and scientific use.

“When we extrapolate that to the country’s healthcare system, we will see that there is a lot of knowledge to be uncovered and lots of insight to be obtained. Herbal medicine represents this treasure chest of knowledge just waiting to be explored and with the right resources, funding, attention, and political attitude, we can unlock its potential.

“We can ship clinical practice and provide a framework for integrating herbal medicine with orthodox medical practices in a way that will provide easily affordable alternatives,” he added.

Corroborating Khalid-Salako, a clinical pharmacist, James Ucheaga, called on the governments to contribute to the scientific investigation of herbal medicine. He noted that since herbal medications were easily accessible and cheaper, it would be wise for the governments to contribute to the scientific investigation of some of the plants and standardise them.

“But while a plant may have useful secondary metabolites, it might also contain some toxic materials. The government can integrate herbal or alternative medicine into orthodox medicine so that they can work hand-in-hand.

“Integrating orthodox and herbal medicine would be a good idea because it would benefit many Nigerians,” Ucheaga added.n