The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Herbalists attending the African Traditional Medicine Day conference have expressed fears of losing their innovations once they open up to regulators in the name of formalizing their trade.
The traditional medicine providers who gathered at Makerere University on Thursday asked the National Drug Authority(NDA) to offer them an alternative to revealing the exact names of the herbs they use to treat specific conditions when registering.
Speaking at the event, Dr Francis Omujal a Researcher at the National Chemotherapeutics Research Institute said that several herbalists have approached him asking whether there is another way to submit their products to the authority without exactly mentioning the plants used.
The same was re-echoed by Hajji Jamil Lutaakome Mukwaya, the President of the Herbalists Association who revealed that many herbalists are still confused about whether to formalize or not and yet traditional medicine has been estimated to be the first point of care for about 60% of the population.
He said this is worsened by the fact that the Traditional and Complementary Medicine Act that was passed to help them organize themselves is largely non-operational as it provided for the formation of a council which is still not in place four years later.
Lutaakome says there are currently about 300 herbalists registered by NDA but warns that the number of those that are not registered exceeds them and quacks are using this loophole to fleece Ugandans in the name of treating them for especially complicated illnesses like cancer and diabetes.
But, when responding to these concerns, Dr Michael Mutyaba who heads the traditional medicine arm at NDA noted that there’s no way that they can register herbs without knowing their composition and added that this demand by herbalists only shows there is a general lack of awareness regarding the commercialization of herbal medicine.
Mutyaba says that other than resisting registration, herbalists should instead be fighting to have an effective law on intellectual property in place and change the mentality of wanting to do everything from growing, testing and marketing their innovations on their own.
He in addition clarified that there is no way herbalists can patent a plant but rather they can patent specific components or formulations that they innovate from these plants.
However, when herbalists’ concerns were put to Kafunjo Twinomujuni, the Manager of Traditional Knowledge at Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), he said herbalists need protection and the Complementary Medicine Act as it is now doesn’t protect their knowledge.
He reveals that they are planning on drafting a separate law for intellectual property such that indigenous knowledge can be protected.
Meanwhile, Dr Grace Nambatya, the Executive Director of the Chemotherapeutics Institute advises herbalists seeking to patent their innovations to always first crosscheck with URSB to confirm whether their plants are not already registered in the category of community knowledge.
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