Lack of laws delay use of herbs in cancer war

Science has shown several local herbal medicines work against cancer, but law makers have failed to enact a regulatory mechanism.

Researchers from the University of Nairobi (UoN) and Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany, have just published evidence showing medicinal herbs used against cancer in Kakamega County actually work.

Led by Dr Dominic Ochwang’i of UoN, the researchers reported that 10 of 35 plant extracts tested in the laboratory were confirmed to act against cancer, some against drug resistant tumours.

The report appearing in January in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology said traditional healers in Kakamega are rational in using these treatments. The findings, they said, open opportunities for new cancer treatments.

“Several extracts inhibited otherwise drug-resistant tumor cell lines with similar or even better efficacy than their drug-sensitive counterparts,” wrote the authors.

Last February, scientists at the Kenya Medical Research Institute identified 20 local herbs with capacity to treat cancer.

An earlier study among children being treated for cancer at the Moi Referral and Teaching Hospital, Eldoret, showed 95 per cent were also being treated with alternative medicines.

Both the national cancer strategy and the new Health Act recommend the rational use of alternative medicines within the conventional health care. But after almost four years in the previous Parliament, the Traditional Health Practitioners Bill 2014, lapsed with little progress for lack of prioritisation.

“It is our hope that the bill can be revived and prioritised,” says Peter Murugu of Murugu Herbal Clinic in Nairobi.