By Sifelani Tsiko
Harare, Zimbabwe (April 13, 2007)
Lack of funding and support of national institutions of research remains a fundamental problem in the general development of traditional medicine in Zimbabwe and the entire African continent.

Prof Lameck Chagonda, the director of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Zimbabwe says while it is good to talk about collaboration with Chinese and Indian traditional medicine practitioners, it is important for Zimbabwe to look at ways of increasing funding to enable local researchers to conduct high-quality research to verify the benefits of traditional medicine.

His sentiments are a follow-up to last week's instalment on the need to strengthen collaboration between African traditional medicine practitioners and their Asian counterparts to promote research and use of traditional medicine in addressing some of the crucial health challenges facing most developing nations.

"Lack of funding for research in traditional medicine is hampering efforts to bring traditional medicines into the mainstream health sector," he says.

"At the moment we are carrying out research under very difficult circumstances. The laboratory equipment is obsolete and most of it is broken down."

Prof Chagonda says lack of infrastructure, laboratory equipment, research materials, research grants and the flight of donors in the pharmaceutical school were some of the factors hampering the rational use and promotion of traditional medicine in the country.

Import restrictions and delays, lack of foreign currency and the general lack of political will to adequately fund research institutions such as the School of Pharmacy were affecting traditional medicine research activities.

"This school has a potential to play its part in the general development and promotion of traditional medicines," Prof Chagonda says. "This school is one of the few institutions that can conduct meaningful research in traditional medicine if there is adequate funding."

 The school is unable to carry out research activities, to upgrade or replace obsolete laboratory equipment owing to poor funding and red tape when it came to procedures to buy research materials or to maintain existing ones.

With inflation running at 1 700 percent, it has become extremely difficult for the UZ pharmacy school to upgrade or maintain its labs.

Support from private pharmaceutical companies is dwindling as the prevailing economic problems have not spared anyone.
Iklim Viol and Tafadzwa Munodawafa, post graduate students at the school, say they now have to move to other departments at the campus or outside to other company laboratories to conduct certain tests something which is time consuming and delays research undertakings.

"Lack of laboratory equipment to do tests is  big problem," says Tafadzwa. "We have to move from one department to another to search for equipment to conduct certain tests. We have to share the limited equipment. We waste a lot of time queuing for laboratory equipment."

Says Viol: "Most of the research materials are not available. We don't have adequate chemicals, lab equipment and there are delays when the inputs are imported.

"It will be preferable if we have everything in one place. We are operating under difficult circumstances. We are able to carry out research in traditional medicine but lack of funding is making things difficult for us."

The flight of skilled personnel has also affected this school which churns out about 45 pharmacists a year.
The UZ pharmacy school has four remaining lecturers who are experienced when it requires more than 20 lecturers for it operate efficiently excluding other support staff.

"The school is struggling to retain staff. It requires adequate infrastructure and functional equipment. Even though I'm painfully optimistic about the future of the school, the facts on the ground prove otherwise," says Prof Chagonda.

The government has three pharmacists and there about 140 vacant posts owing to the massive brain drain of health personnel.

Prof Chagonda believes strongly that if the pharmacy school is adequately funded it can carry out meaningful research in traditional medicine and help support the country's struggling health sector.

"We have to address these issues to help promote research in traditional medicine," he says.
Despite the funding problems, the School of Pharmacy with the support of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and resources  provided by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Development Programme has been running a traditional medicinal plants project for the past two years.

Under the project, Tafadzwa and Viol are screening some of the most threatened and commonly used traditional medicinal plants from five districts in Zimbabwe for biological and phytochemical activities with a view to publishing monographs and a pharmacopoeia. (A book containing directions for the identification of samples and the preparation of compound medicines)

The project aims to promote the conservation, sustainable use and cultivation of endangered medicinal plants in Zimbabwe through the development of effective models and legal framework for the sustainable exploitation of medicinal plant products. 

Other objectives include developing appropriate legal frameworks for promoting benefit sharing and protection of intellectual property rights and access control, education and awareness and the promotion of small businesses for processing and marketing of medicinal plant products.

"Zimbabwe's traditional medical practitioners have long yearned to have their practice recognised alongside the mainstream modern medicine.

"In countries like India and China, their traditional medicines has always enjoyed the mainstream status. This is not so in Zimbabwe where the practice was banned during the colonial era," says Prof Chagonda.

To bring it to mainstream status, he says there has to be systematic, pre-clinical and clinical evaluations of the medicines and an enabling legislative environment and policies to address indigenous knowledge systems and Intellectual Property Rights issues.

"One of the key institutions with the greatest potential to do so is the new School of Pharmacy which has been training pharmacist for the past 33 years," says Prof Chagonda.

"Although its main goal is the training of qualified and competent pharmacists, its principal research thrust is in the scientific evaluation of traditional medicinal plants and traditional remedies including agro-veterinary herbs."

A least 10 post graduate students are studying various aspects of traditional medicinal plants and traditional remedies and their role in preclinical and clinical research on HIV/Aids and OIs ( opportunistic infections), malaria, TB, diabetes, cancer and hypertension.

"There is great scope in studying traditional medicines. There huge benefits in terms of contribution to health, the economy and sources of new chemical raw materials," says Prof Chagonda.

"We have to support our institutions while at the same time encouraging collaboration with other regional and international universities involved in similar research in traditional medicines."

 It is quite evident that with adequate funding institutions such as the School of Pharmacy can help to broaden the recognition of traditional medicine, to support its integration into national health systems and provide technical guidance and information for the safe and effective use of such medicine.

The school can also play a crucial role in the preservation and protection of medicinal plant resources and knowledge of traditional medicine through the promotion of sustainable uses.

Traditional medicine is more popular in Africa and is easily available and affordable among the poor on the continent.
But with rapid urbanisation and globalisation, indigenous knowledge holders are concerned about the erosion of traditional lifestyles and cultures through external pressures, including loss of their knowledge and reluctance of the young generation to take interest in maintaining traditional practices.

UZ researchers are important in the documentation of the traditional medicines in addition to making detailed studies on other areas of concern such as biopiracy, misappropriation of natural resources, preservation of biodiversity and protection of medicinal plant resources for the sustainable development of traditional medicine.

Funding remains a fundamental principle for the growth and promotion of traditional medicine in Zimbabwe and in most countries in Africa.