A well-developed plant medicine sector in Africa could be a viable alternative in finding a cure for COVID-19.

This cure could serve not only the African continent, but the entire global community in a period, when there is a tough struggle world-wide to find a cure for the pandemic.

Dr Benjamin Anyagre, Executive Director of the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute (KNII), said plant medicine had proved efficient in the past, "so we should not narrow our minds to orthodox medicine alone."

He said the most important thing, was to come up with scientific proof of potency of these traditional medicines.

Dr Anyagre noted that whilst a number of pandemics had struck the world in the past such as the Spanish flu of 1918, they did not wipe out the African population, which means, the continent had an indigenous medical response then.

"The efficacy of plant medicine, had our grandparents, using certain plants to cure diagnosed patients, with positive outcomes of good health and long life," he said.

Dr. Anyagre appealed to government and the private sector in Ghana to support the Mampong Center for Plant Medicine, and also encourage such initiatives throughout the country.

He said there was the need to establish Afrocentric Plant Medical Research Centers all over Africa, towards improving health care, the quality of life in Africa and the world at large.

"Plant medicine in Africa need to be rejuvenated through scientific research," Dr. Anyagre noted.