We have plant used to make Madagascar COVID-19 drink in Nigeria – health minister

The Nigerian Government Thursday said preliminary results of the analysis of the Madagascar COVID-19 herbal drink by the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRID) showed that it is the same as the plant Artemisia annua, with proven efficacy in malaria treatment.

He noted that the plant is grown on NIPRID farm and that further research on its efficacy will be conducted when the grants for research is approved.

President Muhammadu Buhari, on 15th May 2020, received the delivery of the country’s allocation of the Madagascar anti-coronavirus drink and he promised to ‘listen’ to science before allowing traditional or any new medicines to be administered on Nigerians.

Speaking at the briefing by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 on Thursday in Abuja, Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire said one of the components of the Madagascar mixture was imported by the Nigerian Government some years ago and cultivated it for the purpose of using it for production of anti-malarial medicine.

He explained that the specie of the plant available in the country has a very high concentration of artemisinin with a very high yield, adding that further research will reveal the efficacy of the plant in the treatment of the coronavirus disease.

He explained that the move is to assure users and caregivers of reduced bottlenecks and improved efficiency in our response adding that this would be scaled up to other states of the Federation.