The President of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, on April 20th, unveiled an organic natural tonic extract that is believed to cure coronavirus.
The remedy, named COVID-ORGANICS, whose principal ingredients are derived from Artemisia annua or sweet wormwood, a green leafy plant that emits a striking odor.
Dried leaves from the plant are considered to have medicinal properties and especially in the fight against malaria in Madagascar.
This comes at a time when the World Health Organization asked researchers around the world to seek deep understanding of the virus before coming to conclusions about the cure or vaccine to the virus.
Most countries have gone ahead to heed to caution instituted on Madagascar’s tonic cure by WHO’s statement release which has given various reasons one of them being that the cure is ‘traditional’ and ‘misinformed’.
Well, I stand to be corrected but I ought to think and side with COVID-ORGANICS as a leeway to the process of finding a possible ‘scientific’ cure to COVID-19.
To begin with, it is known that the medicinal plant Artemisia annua is being considered as a possible treatment for the virus but first need to be tested for efficacy and adverse side effects.
Arguably, the process involved in the complete acceptance of any drug must be thorough most likely precise and this makes it long. A twist comes with this segment of testing for adverse side effects as it doesn’t connect.
Madagascar is utilizing the drug and is even exporting to over ten African nations with people and there hasn’t been a case of adverse side effects from using the drug.
Conversely, as at the time of writing this article (May 12, 2020, 18:06 GMT), there haven’t been any deaths related to COVID-19 in Madagascar with 186 confirmed cases and 101 recoveries.
With this kind of information, many countries around the world had confirmed at least 10 deaths and this isn’t the case in Madagascar. This might be a good sign to Africa that actually the drug works and it isn’t a miracle potion as referred to, it should thus be adopted, support Madagascar and offer help to the world.
In addition, China-the country where the virus originated from, is now looking into its traditional medicine in an effort to come to terms with a cure for the pandemic. Even when the World Health Organization insists that all research should be scientific and tested on lab-rats before coming to an agreement for efficacy on humans, China hasn’t ignored the herbal way of medicine. With this, I guess there’s no harm in African countries supporting our own in the exploration for a cure to this pandemic.
Summarily, Old is Gold as the wise put it, and therefore there is no need to halt research into traditional ways of life just because it is old-fashioned and unscientific. There is always a connection between the past and the future and ignorance shouldn’t be a stumbling block to connect the two phases of existence.
African states and their leaders should come to terms and realize that Africa is sitting on a big deal of resources that might turn out to be a solution to this deadly virus. We should not sit by the benches and watch African resources being exploited to make a cure in a laboratory outside the African continent then pay for it through our noses. Not unless this virus is bio-engineered with a specific aim then traditional herbal research should strongly be financed and supported by the African Union (AU).
FACTS:
- Approximately 90% of all plant and animal species found in Madagascar are endemic (a unique ecological state where a specific species of plant is defined to a certain geographical location).
- Ecologists refer to Madagascar as the Eighth Planet because of its biodiversity.
- More than 80 percent of Madagascar’s plant species are found nowhere else in the world, including five plant families.
