Medicinal Plant Summit for West Africa 2016

Scope of the meeting

The use of medicinal plants in disease management is an age-long practice in many parts of the world particularly in Africa and other developing continents. Africa is home to many rich, traditional medicine practices, fairly similar to the Ayurvedic system of medicine in South Asia.  According to WHO report, medicinal plants as traditional health-care raw materials are accessible, affordable, wealth-/job-generating and culturally-compatible sources of primary health care drugs for more than 80% of the developing world population who exclusively rely on traditional medicine. Moreover, WHO reports also indicated that the international market of herbal products is estimated to be US $ 62 billion which is poised to grow to US $ 5 trillion by the year 2050. 

The increasing global demand has motivated the current world-wide interest in medicinal plant research particularly in developing countries. Unfortunately, there are many research and development challenges facing medicinal plant scientists, especially the problem of inadequate research support systems, e. g. poor access to research equipment, lack of capacity-building in state-of-the-art biotechniques and funding. Furthermore, in the West African sub-region for instance, many scientists (especially the younger generations) work in isolation or at best in collaboration with colleagues within their environments.

The proposed Summit on Medicinal Plant Research is therefore being organized to provide a sub-regional forum for scientists in research institutes and tertiary institutions, also for traditional medicine practitioners/medical herbalists, academicians, research and development experts from the medical and pharmaceutical industries, biologists, biochemists, herbal drug producers and relevant NGO-stakeholders, quality control staff of herbal FDAs and other relevant governmental agencies, health policy makers, herbal farmers, etc. to share and interact on available experiences and advanced information on medicinal plant utilization.  The scheduled summit will address future research collaboration, institutional networking, sustained idea-sharing and incubation as well as capacity building for the sub-regional scientists in the promotion and development of herbal medicines for sustainable health care provision.

Specific aims of the summit include (among others) the provision of a platform for:

(1). Dissemination of research results and cross-fertiization of research ideas by scientists from across the West African sub-region

(2). ​Networking and development of research collaboration across the sub-region

(3). Capacity building and training workshop on applied biotechniques in medicinal plant research

It is expected  that the interaction among the participants at the summit will result in strategic alliances that will translate to collaborative research, joint postgraduate programme supervision, sharing of research resources and expertise across the sub-region. The summit will make available useful information and career supports for early-career participants from across the region.

Plenary and oral presentations, posters and limited herbal product presentations as well as exhibition stands will address the following medicinal plant thematic areas:

• Biodiversity management and conservation

• Biotechnology in cultivation and industrial processing of medicinal plants

• Phytochemistry and Pharmacognosy

• Ethnopharmacology, Pharmacology and Toxicology

• Phytomedicines and Phytocosmetics

• Herbal Quality control, Monographs and Pharmacopoeia

• Intellectual Property Right and Patent Laws

• Phytocosmetics and Nutraceuticals

• Herbal & medicinal plant drugs for the control of “current” viral diseases (e.g. Ebola, Lassa Fever, HIV/AIDS, etc.

• Any other topic which is related to medicinal plants

   

 Plenary Sessions

• Medicinal Plant Drug Production in West Africa: Prospects and challenges

• Application of modern techniques to medicinal plant exploration

• Integration of herbal medicine and herbal medicines into mainstream health systems in medicines West Africa: the Ghana experience 

• Vital documentations on traditional medicine practice & products: the WAHO project

• Development of herbal drug laws and regulations in Ghana 

• Quality assurance in herbal production for safety and efficacy 

• Cultivation and Conservation of medicinal plants for herbal manufacture 

• Technology development for industrial processing of plant medicines 

• Biological and chemical screening approaches for herbal drugs and cosmetics 

• Food as medicines – exploring medicinal effects of edible plants 

Break-out sessions and seminars

• Research-fund sourcing and developing successful research collaboration 

• Starting a herbal research career in West Africa

• Conservation and management of medicinal plants for drug production

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