Zimbabwe legislators ratify establishment of African Medicines Agency

HON. MASHONGANYIKA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to support what other Hon. Members have said as we endorse our cultural heritage. In my opinion, the use of our traditional culture should be incorporated into college or institutional curriculum where modern medicine can be mixed through research, with traditional medicines.  For example, if someone is suffering from abnormal blood pressure, they should not default on the intake of their daily medicines as prescribed by the medical doctors.  However, they can as well use traditional medicine alongside modern medicine to help achieve a normal blood pressure.

There are chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma where patients are expected to take in prescribed medicines for life.  Such patients should be advised  not to default on their medicine even while they use other traditional medicines.  The medicines are so effective being taken without defaulting such that the patient will do better with time.

In the past, there were no clinics and our ancestors used traditional medicines to treat different ailments and they were healthy.  We now realise that the traditional medicines and foods which we used to eat long ago are good for our health and we are resorting back to that.  The modern foods which we adopted due to colonisation are not good for our health.  We are resorting back to the foods which our ancestors used to eat such as dried traditional vegetables with peanut butter, grasshoppers and many different traditional and natural plants which made their bodies to be strong, healthy and resistant to colds.

Today we have a disease which we call COVID -19.  I say God is good because even biblically, God provided treatment for different diseases and we get healed without using any money.  Not all of us are able to earn money, it is very difficult for others, and hospitals require a fee for one to get treatment.  We survived from plants which were provided by God such as zumbani and so on.  Even today, we are still using those traditional medicines which were provided by God.

These traditional medicines should be readily available in supermarkets so that our people can buy without any form of fear as they will be labeled with instructions on how to administer at home.  It is difficult for people to buy traditional medicines from the streets as they do not know how to take it or the medicinal benefits, but when it is labeled and sold from registered stores, it becomes trustworthy and people can buy without any form of doubt.  We should continue using our traditional medicines.  I thank you Madam Speaker.  Most of the things have been said by other Hon. Members.

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