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news - Agbo (Herbs) Cum Chloramphenicol Combo, Killing Many Nigerians on HWN HIGHLIGHT back to all News
Agbo (Herbs) Cum Chloramphenicol Combo, Killing Many Nigerians on HWN HIGHLIGHT
Most herb (Agbo) sellers now add synthetic drugs, especially chloramphenicol to ensure ‘effective’ malaria treatment. But pharmacists say mixture of herbs and drugs causes kidney and liver failure, among other dangerous outcomes.
Several people, the world over, are now embracing herbs and herbal products for treatment of different ailments. Many of the herbal products have been refined and packaged in such a way that they look like real pharmaceutical products.
But in this part of the world, many people still go for herbs in their natural form. In many towns in the South- West in particular, many people still prefer to buy cooked herbs (agbo) for N20, especially for the treatment of different forms of fever such as malaria, yellow and typhoid. The reason some of them give is that agbo, whether cooked (decoction) or extracted (concoction), acts faster than drugs.
The extracted agbo is, most of the times, made with alcoholic drinks. There are varieties of herbal products for different ailments but the predominant ones are those for fever and back pains. Those who patronise the herb sellers believe agbo is cheaper and comes handy. The sellers always find shops or space in markets, near motor parks or street corners, while others prefer to hawk the herb, especially in the evening.
However, most of those who prefer agbo to drugs for the treatment of malaria do not know the names of the plants mixed together. But in their thinking, some of the herb sellers believe they can help the herb to work more effectively. Investigation shows that some of them add drugs such as chloramphenicol, among others, to the herb, either cooked or extracted. A herb seller, who identified herself simply as Saki, said she put the drug in the herb she sells to her ‘customers’.
According to her, it makes the herb to be effective. “That is why my customers continue to patronise me. Many of them have testified to the effectiveness of my herb.
Once they take it, malaria disappears immediately,” she quipped. Another herb seller at Agbado, a community sandwiched between Ogun and Lagos states, popularly called Mama Wahab, said she was aware some people add chloramphenicol to herb to make it effective. But she denied using either chloramphenicol or any other drug to sell herb. She said: “I am aware some people add chloramphenicol to herb.
They claim it makes it more effective. But I don’t believe that. I inherited herb selling from my mother, so I sell agbo with complete herbs. We use several herbs to make agbo iba (herb for treating malaria) so it A herb seller displaying her wares near a garrageis effective.
Those who add drugs are mostly those who only venture into it to make quick money. It is not an inherited business to them, they only dabble into it.
According to her, most of those doing that are those who hawk herbs and those selling herbs near motor parks. A man, who gave his name as Mr. Akinlade Adejo, said he preferred herb to synthetic drugs because, according to him, he is used to taking concoction and it works.
He said: My siblings and I grew up drinking agbo. And we are not alone. People of my generation in this part of the world were taking herbs while growing up. It works faster and it is taken from plants, which are natural, compared to synthetic drugs. However, Adejo said he was not aware some malaria herbs contain chloramphenicol.
I have not seen or noticed that. But I will find out. And if it is true, I have to stop taking it,” the estate management consultant added. But it seems both the sellers and consumers do not know the dangers associated with consumption of herbs laced with chloramphenicol.
According to Drugs.com, chloramphenicol has caused severe and sometimes fatal blood problems such as anaemia, low blood platelets and low white blood cell counts. Leukaemia has also been reported after use of chloramphenicol. Blood problems have occurred after both short-term and long-term use of chloramphenicol, it added.
A pharmacist with the Ogun State Hospitals Board, Mr. Fatai Amusa, said chloramphenicol ought not to be added to herbs. According to him, the addition of synthetic drugs to herbs could be linked to the growing cases of internal organs’ failure.
He said: “First of all, chloramphenicol is an antibiotic. It is usually recommended that an adult should take two thrice daily, that is an average of six tablets per day. But someone adding it to herb would probably add 10 tablets to a pot of herb which is about 20 or more people would drink. What that means is an under dosage.
What an under-dosage does is to give room for the emergence of drug resistance. Because the quantity being used in this instance is less than what an individual should use, it will not be able to kill the An agbo hawker in Lagosorganisms which it supposed to kill.
Secondly, because it is an antibiotic; it ought not to be boiled. But when added to boiled herb, assuming it remains, the seller will still warm it the following day that means it would have destroyed the ability of the drug.
Thirdly, there is possibility of interaction or formation of a dangerous complex between the herb and the drug itself that we may not understand now which may harm the body. It may not be immediately, it may be later. “Also, the incidence of kidney failure and so on is increasing. This and others are the likely cause of that.”
Another pharmacist, the National Secretary, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Mr. Iyiola Gbolagade, agreed with Amusa on the dangers inherent in combining drugs with herbs.
According to him, it is one of the reasons for increasing end organs’ failure. He said: “It is a fraud; a total fraud. Someone who claims to be herb specialist who now puts chloramphenicol in the herb, she does not know the chloramphenicol she has put in the herb for the people to drink.
That means she does not know what she has put together. That is fraudulent. These people selling herbs do not know anything.
The concoction they are preparing for people to drink is not standardised. If they say the herb cures malaria, you cannot see anything to prove it can work for malaria unlike orthodox medicines which are standardised and published in scientific journals and proven that they can cure ailments they claim they can work for.
So to add chloramphenicol to herb is a fraud.
Nigerians need to run away from all this rubbish. We need to educate our people that it is a fraud. It is because people are looking for money that is why they engage in all these preparations they are giving Agbo seller attending to her clientspeople to be taking for all sort of ailments.
Herbs are chemicals. They contain different metabolites of different plants. The chloramphenicol you are talking of is an antibiotic; it can really kill a lot of pathogens.
But it has its own side effects in human body. It must be dosed. The person putting it in the herb does not know the quantity she supposed to put. So it has very serious side effects in the body. Adverse drug reactions of chloramphenicol are very, very dangerous.
The major terrible thing it does is that it causes irreversible aplastic anaemia; it depresses the bone marrow where the red blood cells are being produced. It is not something somebody who is not knowledgeable in medicine can handle.
Gbolagade also said that most of the herbs can damage kidney.
He added: You know most of the concoctions are coloured, the dye in them can lead to kidney damage. The same way they can damage the liver which is the central clearing house for poisons in the body. There are normal poisons.
When you eat protein, your body will produce urea which is toxic to the body. So the liver has to clear it out of the body. Likewise there are other chemicals that enter the body unknowingly, through water we drink or anything we eat.
By the time you take all those unnecessary things, especially in doses which the body cannot handle, they can lead to end organs damage – the kidney and liver. We all know that there is increase in end organs’ failure in the country.
Source: NewTelegraphOnline, HWN Africa.
: 2016-09-10 02:37:49 | : 1577
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