The World Health Organization (WHO) has endorsed a protocol for testing African herbal medicines as potential treatments for the coronavirus and other rampant diseases.
A 25-member regional expert advisory committee on traditional medicine for COVID-19 has been tasked with supporting countries to enhance research and development of traditional medicine-based therapies against the virus.
The committee will also provide guidance on the implementation of the approved protocols to generate scientific evidence on the quality, safety and efficacy of herbal medicines for COVID-19.
The committee members are from research institutions, national regulatory authorities, traditional medicine programmes, public health departments, academia, medical and pharmacy professions and civil society organisations of member states.
“The adoption of the technical documents will ensure that universally acceptable clinical evidence of the efficacy of herbal medicines for the treatment of COVID-19 is generated without compromising the safety of participants,” said Professor Motlalepula Gilbert Matsabisa, the expert committee chairman.
Immediate use
He said the generic clinical trial protocol will be used immediately by scientists in the region to ensure that people can benefit from the potential of traditional medicine in dealing with the ongoing pandemic.
The decision comes months after an attempt by the president of Madagascar to promote a drink based on artemisia, a plant with proven efficacy in treating malaria, was met with widespread scorn.
WHO experts and colleagues from two other organisations “endorsed a protocol for phase III clinical trials of herbal medicine for COVID-19 as well as a charter and terms of reference for the establishment of a data and safety monitoring board for herbal medicine clinical trials”, a statement from WHO said.
“Phase III clinical trials are pivotal in fully assessing the safety and efficacy of a new medical product,” it said.
Quick process
“If a traditional medicine product is found to be safe, efficacious and quality-assured, WHO will recommend [it] for a fast-tracked, large-scale local manufacturing,” said Prosper Tumusiime, a regional WHO director.
WHO’s partners are the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the African Union Commission Department of Social Affairs.
“The onset of COVID-19, like the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, has highlighted the need for strengthened health systems and accelerated research and development programmes, including on traditional medicines,” Tumusiime said.
In May, WHO’s Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said African governments had committed in 2000 to take “traditional therapies” through the same clinical trials as other medication.
“I can understand the need, the drive to find something that can help,” Moeti said. “But we would very much like to encourage this scientific process in which the governments themselves made a commitment,” she said.
COVID-19 has raised the prospect of using traditional medicines to battle contemporary diseases. The WHO endorsement clearly encourages testing according to criteria similar to those used for molecules developed by laboratories in Asia, Europe or the Americas.
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