Ebola: FG silent on Nigerian vaccine

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Halamin Herbal Products, Pharm. Ben Amodu has expressed sadness over the seeming silence of the Nigerian Government on new Ebola vaccines, a collection submitted by the Nigerian researcher who has been into research and production of herbal drugs for the past 30 years.

Briefing pressmen yesterday in Abuja, Pharmacist Amodu explained how the government seems to have played politics with the recommendation of his herbal products which had gone through the four stage trial to be accepted and recommended as potent vaccine for hemorrhagic diseases.

Amodu decried the fact that the Nigerian government has refused to realize that there are capable hands in the country who could also tackle her emergency situation without necessarily waiting for some foreign intellects to fix her problems.

According to him “we are in 3rd world country; we don’t believe in ourselves, we take everything for granted… but what happened to Abalaka will never happen to me, the so called Abalaka remedies have been developed by country and patented and it is being used to manage HIV/AIDs, what Nigeria rejected is being used in a particular country as we speak.”

He further regretted that while some countries are adopting herbal drugs produced by Nigerians to treat their ailment, government has played politics with the reality, which had caused some losing their ingenuity to theft by some countries.

While attesting to his herbal drugs, the Pharmacist explained that he had submitted his drugs to NAFDAC for tests and certification process but met bottlenecks as he was turned down even after certifying the drug’s potency. He however noted that the drugs have been used for patients mostly at the Garki hospital where they noted noticeable improvement in their health as compared to satisfaction derived from the Whiteman’s drugs.

“I took my products to NAFDAC to be registered as Anti- retroviral herbal capsule, but it was turned down, but today, we have a number of HIV patients we have attended to. In Garki hospital, all patients living with HIV, we give free drugs every month and the first month, they gave very positive feedback as they noticed healing effects of the drugs,” he concluded.