The Western North Regional office of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has held two separate workshops to train more than 170 herbal medicine practitioners in the Region.
The workshops were attended by members of the Traditional Healers Association of Ghana in Enchi, in the Aowin Municipality and Asawinso in the Wiawso Municipality.
Mr Albert Ankomah, Western North Regional Director of the Food and Drugs Authority explained that the training was on good manufacturing practices to ensure that medicines the herbal practitioners produced were of quality, safe and efficacious.
He continued that the herbal practitioners had already been trained on registering requirements with the FDA.
Mr Ankomah said they were also taken through sections of the public health Act 2012 Act 851 which talked about sourcing for raw materials, materials to be used for production, processing, storage of raw materials and finished products, waste management and personal hygiene among others.
Mr Ankomah expressed satisfaction in the number of practitioners in the Region who had initiated the process to register their products this year as compared to the previous years.
He emphasised that some practitioners had gone the extra mile by sending their products to KNUST for laboratory analysis which was a requirement for registering a product with the FDA.
Mr Ankomah expressed satisfaction in the number of herbal products registered in the Region with the FDA since 2022.
He said the setting up of an FDA office in the Western North Region was to get closer to manufacturers and herbal practitioners as well.
He in that regard used the opportunity to advise manufacturers of all products regulated by the FDA to take advantage of their presence to ensure they adhered to good manufacturing practices.
Mr Daud Hamidu, the Chief Executive Officer of Daud Herbal Hospital and Board Member, the Centre for Plant Medicine Research on behalf of the participants, lauded the Food and Drugs Authority for the training since it would enhance practitioners on the do’s and dont’s of herbal medicine practice.
He called for measures to equip herbal practitioners so that they could produce effective herbal medicines to improve upon health care delivery.
Mr Hamidu commended the government and the Ministry of health on the attention given to herbal medicine and called on practitioners to adopt good manufacturing practices.
GNA
