INYANGA’S HIV/AIDS COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE APPROVED

MBABANE – A 70-year-old traditional healer has been identified and authorised by the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) team of researchers to produce complementary medicine to manage HIV/AIDS.

The medication is expected to be commercialised soon after the study is completed, by the end of March 2024. Funding worth E11 371 512, (about 600 000 US$) has been committed towards the project by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), in partnership with the European Union. The healer will be unveiled next week, when the project is launched. The project is led by the Southern Africa Network for Biosciences (SANBio) with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in collaboration with the Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) in Zimbabwe and UNESWA.

Leading

According to Dr Gugu Sibandze from UNESWA, who is leading the project, the traditional remedy is expected to be used together with antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) as complementary medication. “We are not replacing what is already in the market. It will come handy when there is a situation experienced, including drug shortages,” she said. Part of the study, she explained, involved examining all the ARVs that were already in the market to ensure that there would be no interruption when patients took the complementary traditional remedy. She said this would assist them when dealing with patients. Furthermore, she noted that as time went by, they would also examine how the liver of their clients reacted after using the solution.

Solution

“Considering case studies of those who used the solution before, it was discovered that they had not experienced any challenges,” she said.
Sibandze stated that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had guidelines for complementary medicines for Africa, which stated that if the medication had been used for a long time, it had evidence to be safe. Likewise, she said the same standards applied to the Western medicines. Therefore, she added that it was key for them to look at a study which informed them on what would happen to the clients taking the medication.  Sibandze said new evidence had to be documented time and again in order to quickly pick up side effects.

“As a team, we want to come up with a quality product for emaSwati, which is safe,” she added.  She said effectiveness of the product was just an added value. Meanwhile, she added that a number of people were taking complementary medication and nobody was following on what was happening to them, but this shall not apply with the product as they wanted to ensure that it was safe. She said they would be working together with the local healer, who they signed a non-disclosure agreement with.  Sibandze stated that they met the healer about 10 years ago and chose her because she stood out from others.

She said the healer trusted them and was able to share everything with them, without holding back. She said together with the team of scientists, they also went out with the healer to identify the plants she used in producing the HIV/AIDS medication. Sibandze said they managed to record everything in their data base. This, she said, included recording dosages. She stated that dosages used by the healer had been improved as they were using her measurements against their scale to determine the exact quantity.

Manufacture

“The healer was able to manufacture the solution in our presence and used her measurements, which were placed on a scale and came up with a precise quantity,” she explained. When reproducing the remedy in the lab, she said they would use the quantities they recorded, including dosages. She said by so doing, they were developing what the healer already had, as she used her hands to measure quantity before. As such, she said the recipe was documented accordingly.

Sibandze said the healer used five different plants, which were sourced from different parts of the country. She said the remedy had a long history of usage and there were no reported side effects and, therefore, it was considered safe by the healer. According to Sibandze, the research team had also interviewed clients who had been using the traditional remedy to make sure it was reliable. She said some of the clients had been using it before the introduction of ARVs.

She also mentioned that they were collaborating with Zimbabwe but were also working on their own complementary remedy. Sibandze said they were working jointly with Zimbabwe and applied for funding from SADC, although they were conducting their own study on a similar project in their country. She said the project would be fully owned by Eswatini for national benefit.  “Agreements have been signed by the two countries (Zimbabwe and Eswatini) to ensure that the idea remains in the countries,” she said. Also, she said South Africa (SA) was prevented from using the study of both countries for its own gain.

Complementary

Furthermore, she noted that the required tests by the Ministry of Health, when registering a complementary product in the market, would be followed. She said the science part had been covered already as the medicine had been tested using the WHO guidelines for complementary medication, to show evidence and data. Sibandze said they were yet to follow the country’s guidelines required when registering complementary medication.

“We are yet to sit and engage with the Ministry of Health on the requirements,” she said. She added that with the gained knowledge and produced document, others who wanted to manufacture complementary medicines would follow the processes. Furthermore, she mentioned that they would be able to have an idea on how to introduce the product in the market after concluding the study and coming up with the document next year. Once the product is registered, she said it would be able to be absorbed into the market. Sibandze said the product would be produced in the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility and not in someone else’s house or consultation hut (indumba).  This, she said, was because any food and medication consumed by humans needed to have standards where production took place. In this case, she said Eswatini did not have such a facility and would sub-contract with one in SA for purposes of large scale production.

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