Transcript for:
Integrating Traditional and Modern Medicine

[Music] good morning colleagues the time is exactly 10 o'clock and we are just about to start uh on behalf of the nrf software i would like to extend a warm welcome to distinguished girls delegates and participants and a very warm welcome to our panelists uh prof mamza motive mr daniel dima and prof member galini it is such a pleasure and an honor to have you the theme of our opinion is on the role of traditional medicine in modern healthcare system and you have to speak as ever i've already mentioned and now i'm just gonna read a brief um from their bios um just a as a way of an introduction to our speakers uh we have prof mamza motif who is an associate professor and hod in pharmacology pharmacology division at rose university faculty of pharmacy she has more than two decades of experience teaching basic and clinical pharmacology including clinical toxicology complementary alternative and traditional medicine and is passionate about pharmacology education and the decolonization of its curriculum her research focus is on the pharmacology and toxicology of medicinal plants particularly those used as african traditional medicine and she believes that racial medicine plays a notable role in public health heritage therefore aims to serve as evidence generation through a scientific approach that will facilitate coexistence between modern and traditional medicine based on mutual respect and not competition she believes that the greatest achievement of research in african traditional medicine would be institutionalization of african traditional medicine such that the two systems function side by side for better health care provision you are welcome prof and thank you for availing yourself then our second speaker is professor neba galeni who is a research professor at university of kwazulu-natal and africa health research institute he is trained as a biochemist at the former university of natal and obtained his doctorate at the university of strathclyde in scotland in 1996 he is a national research foundation rated researcher with interest on immunology infectious and non-infectious diseases and traditional medicine he has served on the interim traditional health practitioner council of south africa appointed by the minister of health in 2007 he was appointed chair of indigenous healthcare system research a prestigious program funded by the department of science and technology and administered by the national research foundation proof calendar also served in various positions within uk's at n including director of the doris duke a medical research institute deputy dean and director of the center for occupational and environmental health welcome prof kalini it is an honor to have you and our website speaker is mr daniel dima who is a chief executive officer at cape bio technologies is a scientist who specializes in structural biology of infectious diseases he is trained in protein engineering and crystallography bioprocess engineering and biomanufacturing he has a bachelor and honors degrees in biotechnology from the university of western cape and a master's degree in structural biology of infectious diseases from university of pretoria throughout his academic journey he has been awarded multiple awards and scholarships for his excellence in academics social responsibility student leadership and entrepreneurial initiatives he is a fellow of allen great opus foundation this foundation provides education beyond a degree offering 360 degrees of entrepreneurial training to ensure that fellows create value through responsible entrepreneurship see entrepreneurship as a viable career path are able to take an idea and develop it into available opportunities wow uh there we have it colleagues we have such an accomplished researchers and um entrepreneurs as our panelists for today's um webinar and at this point i would like to also mention that we are aware that there's a lot shedding schedule that might affect prof motive and other panelists um we were very aware of that and then if that happens we'll make sure that um another panelist will speak uh when prof was supposed to be speaking and also i would like to to to highlight that we do have a chat box so you can put your input you can put your questions you can put your comments there and during the qna session we'll also be taking a hand so that it's more of an engaging type of platform and the theme i would like to repeat the theme for this webinar is on the role of professional medicine in modern healthcare system and we have frisbee as if i've already mentioned so without the waste of time i would like to call on our first speaker with the title the title of her presentation is concurrent use of african traditional medicine and conventional medicine perception perceptions and realities over to you profound tb thank you um [Music] thank you very much for this opportunity to come and share thoughts on this platform and good morning to everyone uh this is an important platform for all of us who are involved in traditional medicine and traditional medicine issues so thanks for this platform uh going forward i would just like to maybe now share my screen thank you very much again for for the opportunity to to share thoughts on the role of traditional medicine in modern healthcare or in modern health practices i will be largely focusing my presentation my thoughts on perceptions and realities are currently on concurrent use of african traditional medicines and conventional medicine and my focus is largely on the south african context you know many studies have been conducted by researchers across the wide spectrum of research areas from from you know basic sciences to botanist biochemists to pharmacologists to researchers in clinical practice to experts in public health but those in the social sciences and humanities many studies have been conducted by these this wide range of researchers reporting on the use of african traditional medicine by the populations and the concurrent use of african traditional medicine with conventional medicines and and the users of traditional medicines are largely patients who would be using primary health care services or patients would be using hospital services and these would be patients being treated for various conditions chronic conditions communicable conditions or any other condition and some would be using traditional medicine just for maintenance of health you know some would be using it not necessarily treating a specific condition but just for maintaining good health such as during pregnancy and the the use of traditional medicines really cuts across the board in terms of you know it does not matter the socio-economic status of the patient or of the person the education religion age whether a person is rural or urban based all of these those do not matter in terms of the choice or the use of traditional medicines and and in many studies the reasons for the use of traditional medicines have been specified and they are quite diverse from from access to affordability to justice as you know part of cultural practices but one important aspect that comes out of all of these studies is that the use of traditional medicine is by choice patients or users or clients or consumers of traditional medicines choose so choose to do so consciously as an active component of their health seeking behavior so um it's just a matter of us acknowledging that people do use traditional medicines as an option and not maybe enforced by circumstances okay so now when we look at perceptions uh the simplest way to express perceptions is it's a way in which something is regarded or is understood or interpreted and therefore you know central to the use of traditional medicines as well as conventional medicines we have the patient and so the perception of the patient about the use of traditional medicine is important but these important these other stakeholders are important the healthcare worker as well as or the healthcare professional as well as the traditional health practitioner they are the major stakeholders around the patient because they both of them have the interest of the patient at heart and therefore perceptions of these three types of these people around traditional medicines are important because these are the kind of you know views that influence decision making around the use of traditional medicine in general the the the you in many studies we always report um the number you know the 80 percent uh population the number which is quoted by the who that 80 percent of you know the african population use primary use traditional medicine as part of their primary health care and in south africa it's estimated that it's 72 percent of black south africans use traditional medicine so you can see how wide or how how how large you know a role the traditional medicine play in in in terms of seeking help by the population um in in sharing with you i'll be sharing um my part of the findings of a study we conducted in smu in 2019 as part of a master's dissertation and we were looking at perceptions of patients of traditional healers as well as healthcare workers on the concurrent use of traditional medicine as well as conventional medicines this study was conducted in malanga in a regional hospital in bumalanga and it was an interview based uh study on uh on the patient side we also interviewed uh the health care workers as well as a group of traditional healers who used to hold monthly meetings at one of the clinics close to the hospital at one of the clinics that is the feeder clinic to the hospital so in terms of perceptions of those patients then majority of the the patients this that was conducted at the general outpatient clinic within the hospital so the majority of patients who who attended that clinic and who were participants in the study they indicated that they used traditional medicine then most of them believe that traditional medicine can work together with western medicine or conventional medicine and some of them of course believe that western medicine would work better however a few of them indicated only a few of them around 14 indicated that they have reported the use of traditional medicine today to the healthcare provider who was saving them at the time the majority though of patients who indicated that they use traditional medicine stated that they did not disclose uh to the to their healer to their sorry to the conventional health provider to the healthcare worker their use of traditional medicine because simply they believe that that would influence the reception that would influence the counseling that they would receive from the health care provider and some of the reasons they put forth include you know statements such as the patient not disclosing because the health care provider did not ask or the patient did not think it was important to disclose or there was no need to disclose and and some of them saying they were afraid to tell them and others saying it's because they know that the healthcare provider would not listen to them and this was really in line with uh the findings of many other studies that are indicated that many studies have been done and and these are largely studies that would have been done before 2020 before we had the covet pandemic and those studies in line with the one that we conducted really expressed the same sentiments that patients feared that by disclosing they would lose trust there would be a loss of trust between them and the healthcare provider you know they they would there's no this lack of support and understanding from the healthcare provider and some of them really said that they they read the room they they they could see that from the behavior of the healthcare provider that they would not get um you know a good reception and therefore that discouraged them from just losing and i think these are important um perceptions of use to node because they get carried throughout many of the studies that are conducted they come out in a lot of the studies or they came out in many of the studies that that were done before 2020. then when it gets to uh healthcare providers um in the study that we conducted the few that we had and include a included necessary doctors saving within that uh outpatient clinic they indicated that they would discuss concurrent use of uh of the medicines with their patients regardless of the problem but mainly they would be discussing harmful effects of the medicines of the traditional medicines and not beneficial effects they would not recommend that patients use traditional medicines because traditional medicines are never proven scientific are not proven scientifically um they are or else they will discuss concurrent use with those who the patients who are open about the use so it could be discussions with patients who disclose that they use traditional medicine or when they see that there's evidence of organ failure or damage then that's when they would initiate discussion around concurrent use of traditional medicine and conventional medicine and other studies performed as i indicated this would be studies done before 2020 also generally also expressed negative perceptions by healthcare providers of professional healthcare providers where there's usually a concern about the impact of traditional medicine use on treatment outcomes and whether you know there didn't be any uh interactions address effect or complications as well as to existence about on of traditional medicines however there's also recognition that patients will continue using traditional medicines and hence there's a need you know to create in a conducive environment so that patients can discuss their their use or their treatment strategies openly they there's also reports on you know the willingness to collaborate with traditional healers however um that would be done within the context of noting that you know conventional health practice has to be the one that is carrying a larger priority that that's the one that is that would be on top in terms of the hierarchy and that's what came largely through most of of the studies then then when it comes to traditional health practitioners the ones in the study reported that you know they they would they believe that traditional medicine and western mission can be used together you just need to allow enough time in between because they believe that the traditional medicine is stronger than conventional medicine and therefore will wash out their conventional medicine and render it ineffective they also were referring patients to clinics or hospitals however they were concerned about the fact that patients are criticized for consulting them first and they were prepared to work together with healthcare providers as they realized that there are many things that they are not able to do and therefore these can because this can only be done within a primary healthcare setting or within a hospital setting then they would recommend that patients go there and they gave examples such as in setting a drip it's something that um they know can be done can only be done in a proper healthcare setting uh to these healers the two types of medicines are equally effective and one can be better than the other depending on the conditions that are treated and they quoted mental health or mental illness as one of those conditions that they believe that um a patient would rather see a traditional healer first before they get hospitalized or they get started on conventional medicine for their mental health they also are aware that there's a negative there are always negative views about traditional medicine from the conventional health providers although these uh con professional healthcare providers have no understanding of how traditional medicine works and this also was in line with a lot of other studies where you know there's this there's some bit of negative perception about traditional medicine as a practice from the um professional healthcare providers and there's always mistrust and disrespect that traditional healers say they have experienced and there's also a lack of appreciation that they have seen and experienced throughout although they were open to you know training in and understanding how western or conventional medicine works so that that would help in establishing collaborative related relationships or that they would be able to have you know conducive relationship with professional healthcare providers so overall what came out from from most of these studies and that would be similar recommendations throughout is that patients should be encouraged to disclose their use of traditional medicine and they should always be improved communication between healthcare providers and patients as well as traditional healers because all of these have the interest of the patient's health and so you know that can only improve the outcomes in terms of from the on to the patient um there should also be exposure or education to healthcare workers on traditional missing news so that they are able and and this is that this would be done at or this would be recommended to be done at undergraduate level so that the the healthcare workers are able to interact fairly with patients and advise them on an informed basis and the the biggest and one important recommendation coming out would be that there's a need for policy development on collaboration between traditional healers and healthcare providers and on integration of traditional medicine into the public health system because currently things are done as people you know choose it is at the behest of the healthcare worker to decide whether they you know how they approach a patient who discloses that they are using traditional medicine and how to approach a patient who who who they see that there's evidence of use but then the patient does not disclose so there are no clear guidelines there's no policy so yeah most of the studies then indicated that there's a need for policies now as i mentioned earlier perceptions are simply you know dynamic and they they are influenced by the knowledge that we gather they are influenced by the experiences that we go through they're experienced but they are influenced by circumstances at the time so since 2020 after we've gone through the covet pandemic and as we are still going through the the pandemic there's been a bit of shift in terms of perceptions particularly from the conventional health practice site um some of these studies that have now come forth from 2020 to date do show that this you know there's a shift in terms of thinking and in terms of how these the different stakeholders now view the role of traditional medicine a paper that has been published and by clinical pharmacologists indicate that they the clinical pharmacologists indicate that they they acknowledge that by virtue of having been trained on conventional drug use that means that they will always have bias towards conventional drug use however they now have respect for traditional the role that traditional medicine can play and they are optimistic about the role of or the potential role of traditional medicines in in the current pandemic and in future pandemics and another study um indicated that traditional healers have a role to play and a contribution to make therefore they should be allowed to perform their activities whilst another stated that there's a need for government to show political will and that should come out by setting up regulatory strategic strategies for scientific evaluation and certification of traditional medicines and this would then build confidence among healthcare workers or by medical scientists about traditional medicines and it would then facilitate easy collaboration and integration [Music] for ethics committees and regulatory agencies and policy makers there's recommendations that they should now review their bureaucratic processes and expedite current processes so that um you know and and expedite these processes without compromising on core requirements as they you know we're looking forward to having a more clear role a more defined role of traditional medicine in modern health and then there's this this this acknowledgement that dialogue and information exchange between modern and traditional medicine should be based on mutual respect and the aim should be you know for the two to be complementary and not competitive which has been largely you know the expression on coming out from the earlier studies okay now um the reality is really uh that we we are currently in and i think this is important for us going forward because you can have your own perceptions but you know at some point we have to look at what actually is the you know the real situation and i have put down these as our actual realities that we're facing and that we have to acknowledge and the first one is that health facilities will keep receiving and treating patients who use traditional medicines and they will keep receiving and treating patients who use these medicines concurrently with conventional medicines and that cannot be ignored any further currently there are largely no policy or protocols or guidelines in place for treatment approach to patients who use traditional medicines so then healthcare workers are put in a position where they have to use their own discretion as to how they approach the treatment for any of these patients and i guess then it makes life easy if a patient doesn't disclose because then you are at liberty to ignore that fact however if a patient discloses then how should then the healthcare worker proceed there's no guidelines in place to guide that kind of approach hence then with the absence of this in place are we really providing adequate health care are we practicing appropriate disease management or we want to believe that we are doing it you know i mean the use of traditional medicine is there we know it exists we know these patients exist and it's been treated like you know a white elephant in the room in that you know it's there but you just go on with life you ignore it in the hope that you will achieve positive outcomes anyway now with all that said then we also now need to acknowledge that our indigenous medicine or our traditional medicine is unique and therefore we have to seek unique solutions for their safety for their quality and for their therapeutic users and the recommendations would be that the all of the research that we are doing and there's been a lot of research being done some of it being done to validate whether these uh traditional medicines are really effective as they claim to be all of this research should trust the research funding should translate into solutions for public health care that you know we've got so much information that is in you know different research outputs in articles in our libraries we've got so much information that we have but it's not translating to any tangible uh um you know proof or any tangent tangible use for public health and you can simply use the who guidelines to help in that regard one of the things that you could easily do is to collect data ourselves from our health facilities i mean what how would it be difficult to make sure that every patient who comes in is just as the question as to whether they do use traditional medicine or not and then we note that information we collect it ourselves so it would be you know in the archives of the department of health and we would know exactly how you know the percentage of our patients who actually use these services who do use or who do report that they use traditional medicines and with that information being available it is up to us as researchers in the different you know areas how we use that information to benefit the practice of public health okay and this requires that you know the department of health within the directorate of traditional medicine as well as maybe pharmacogenetics units get together get their heads together and see that this can be done or this can be facilitated we also need to form you know formal links with traditional healers within the public health service these are to be formalized um because they they need to be seen to be serving as an important partner within the public health sector and and it can be done by simply starting locally as um it was done by you know that clinic where we did our study um you know it can be started locally one traditional healer who is well known in a community in the clinic that is saving a particular community can be used as a resource or a few of them and this would really benefit and build on relationships going forth it would even simplify things for the government as a whole because then it would be easy to reach you know relevant stakeholders on traditional health issues um and then for policy makers for regulators and public health experts it is important to note that we need to have unique solutions um they they the role of traditional medicines in health in modern health and they you know the important part they play in achieving positive health outcomes would require that we seek unique solutions it cannot simply be expected to be imposed on the template of conventional medicine as is and i think that if we are open to seeing how unique traditional medicine is then we can only benefit from you know participative participation of traditional healers as well as active input of traditional medicine as a practice within the public health service [Music] in my last slide covered 19 as a pandemic really catapulted the role of traditional medicine it really put the role of traditional medicine on the you know on on the central stage of modern healthcare and there is now political will going forth i mean this is the first time that we've had that who has recommended that you know traditional medicine can be taken for clinical trials which is something that we've been battling for a long time but now you know there's a move towards allowing that and facilitating that clinical trials can can be taken can be conducted on traditional medicine so i believe that we shouldn't lose that momentum there's there's you know all of the stakeholders now seem to be realizing that there's there's a much uh important role there's a much better role that traditional medicine can play or a much more significant role that should be attributed towards traditional missing in modern healthcare and with those three ways then i would like to say galileo boca thank you very much for your attention thanks thank you so very much prof matibe for such an enriching presentation with practical examples and you so you highlighted the use of traditional medicine as an option not forced by circumstances and the importance you know of having the interest of the patient had thank you so very much very enriching presentation there are a number of questions that are directed to you uh however we'll address all the questions during the q a so i'd like just to to talk to um to communicate that we've noted the questions and prof motiva will be addressing them during the q and a session thank you very much colleagues for those questions please keep them coming and for today's webinar our second uh speaker is prof neba galeni who will be um giving a presentation titled uh developing solutions for south africa's priority diseases using indigenous knowledge system uh proof profiling over to you thank you thank you dr kobani our facilitator and i'm also grateful to the organizers of this meeting for for inviting me to participate and and greetings and everyone who's attending this this webinar um the title is there for you um and uh let me just state that we have some major pandemics in south africa and starts at say says um as of now there's probably about eight comma five million south africans with a living with hiv the country has experienced more than four million covet infections it was state state estimated that of the 44.5 million people between 20 and 79 they also diabetes in south africa in 2019 52 percent were undiagnosed kind of a silent killer that that we are finding of course these come with partners in crime or terrible twins like tb and which makes tb one of the leading causes of death amongst people living with hiv and we also have a high equivalence of non-communicable diseases for example obesity obesity diabetes and cardiovascular disease and also on the increase at the moment so we do need to find solutions taking one cue from professor motiva is that kovit has taught us something uh the first is that we we live in a in a society where colonialism is entrenched which means that we depend on the west we don't develop drugs here we don't develop vaccines we always wait for pfizer or whomever to supply including um you know genetics when the chips were down during covet the west looked after its own citizens and were back in the two and also it's shown us that solutions do not lie only on big farmer and and that is important so we do need to bring solutions to the table for scientific invest investigation and such that we can also rely on ourselves and that is important now president mandela had said that traditional health practitioners often have greater accessibility and acceptability than the modern health sector and should be used as a vehicle for health promotion the word use is not about abuse but it's like they're good partners in this in this endeavor now literature has been said that thp constitute an extensive network potentially capable of expanding and simplifying access to comprehensive hiv aids stis and tb prevention can treatment and of course patients move freely between these two systems traditional and allopathic we had since 2007 and been involved in a intervention to bring traditional healers and the public healthcare system closer around this program we've worked with about two thousand traditional health practitioners in five districts in a teguine in in k zen and linking thps with the local clinics for referral amongst themselves as thps where they can refer suspects for testing and counseling and screening for tb and and also then link that because of the aid system that we have in south africa link them to the world aids committees for reporting this course then to local aids councils and reporting up such that the data they generating feeds into the statistics of the country however this has had its own challenges because the the healthcare system tends to [Music] it's kind of a one-way referral healers refer and the healthcare system thinks it's taken over that's kind of changing slightly for now and but we're also realizing because traditional healers feel then we're only making them you know lose their own patients to the healthcare system but they do have therapeutics why are we not looking at them and which is now the focus of this presentation for now but this refers requires a kind of a paradigm shift because we're not starting drug development from scratch in the conventional way and we're starting with a product that healers already using and prescribing to to their patients and and they already know that it's working because if it's not working they'll probably refer to another healer or of course the public health system indians call this reverse pharmacology you're starting with the product not the conventional drug development way but normally a healer may not explain the mechanism of action if the product works how does it work and so we do a different work to to establish that and also identifying the active pharmaceutical ingredients not that we're looking for pharmaceuticals but at least we can explain in this product these are the chemical entities that consent to to affect certain healing properties i will just select a few cases for the for the sake of time this is a product for plant product from a healer we work with here from dundee babangabinde and we've been able to kind of establish in these four plants which plants have potential anti-hiv properties and you can see that using efferverent as a positive control that the extract the crude extract of this plant has potent and antiviral remember efferverence is a single pure compound and this crude extract still has activity at a concentration similar to efferverence which we think were way too further purified it probably would be much more potent and we are also working with the phytochemists who kind of pulling out these compounds to identify them we've also looked at a subtype c virus activity and for for this for this product and we're using a positive control of sat and we can see that it is also quite effective now one of the things we know with antiretrovirals is that they are not a cure for hiv rather they clear the virus in the blood to non-detectable levels while the part the virus hides latently in tissue if a patient stops taking their treatment the virus might reappear and actually might even be more resistant to the antiretrovirals so we were looking at because we're not looking at generating a new antiretroviral from a traditional medicine but we're looking at what other functions does the product have because there's a myriad of chemicals that are within the mixture do they reverse potentially uh latent underrate by i mean high virus in tissue and this is the model that we're using and what it shows us and quite clearly is that yes it does reverse um and in a concentration and related way so now we know we have a product that can achieve both um functions and the plan now is to take this forward and and such that we can in a main manner move to phase one phase two clinical trials and we've already done some animal work on this when the advent of covid at the department of science and technology and implode us to look at our local indigenous hemps that are well known to manage flu and other things and so we a few of us csr university of free state and probably others have embarked on on this work we are part of a consortium so we share this this work and so we would take this is one example that we work with and we then work with these plants that are coming some come as single or combinations and we've got a an essay that we've established for anti-sus cough activity we know for example that the the virus enters the human cells through a a spike protein h2 and so we've got also an an essay that we can see whether the products can [Music] you know block the virus from entering through the h2 system and this is part of the products that we look at and and what we can see that this does actually with a selective index of about 116 percent so at least we do know that some of these traditional medicine can be very effective in preventing the entry of the virus into the human host but there's more to cover than just entry you've got to know if you're killing the virus and also are you preventing the cytokine storm and other conditions so it's because it's more like a syndrome but we've got promising data which then allows us to move to the next stages we're using here and then an antibody and we can also call as a positive control we can also see that we can achieve for some of these products relative um activity to that of an antibody which is much more specific and so this uh gives us hope uh on that we can then move to the to the next steps now remember um saskov in a sense is has our concern is a sense of where there are no treatment options and there's some people clear the virus on their own some people need 10 days to clear it with steaming at home and whatnot but there's nothing that for those with severe symptoms can rely on and if it gets the virus get to the lungs what do you do and so these are the things we're looking at at this stage of course i mentioned diabetes as a pandemic that is upon us and with hypertension as this twin and and other cardiovascular conditions and so we have models for type 1 and type 2 diabetes the data i'm showing you here is that of type one [Music] and you can see on the bottom graphs we use conventional drugs as positive controls insulin metformin equipment and that you can see that the the product the extracts that we're working with are working comparatively these are a mouse model and and we do also have a model for um obob and the obesity which is the current type 2 diabetes and we also have similar data that we we're generating so this allows us then to then at least move forward with data i i get some of these rare referrals and that come to me one for cervical and one for a prostate and this one is for kaposi sarcoma which is the past was kind of an aids defining cancer and there's a patient who has been seen by gpus on medical aid is refusing treatment from a doctor but is not taking it it goes to his healer who gives prescription for for him and and so when he goes back to his doctor the response is not how the doctor was expecting and then begin to ask him as prospero thibault was saying some doctors do ask and say what what are you on and he says i'm taking i'm not taking your product i'm taking my healer's one and so the doctor refers this medicine and not the patient but the medicine to us to say i don't do research can you work on this we do not have a model for capocity on our system but we have collaborators in florida who had published work on this and so we referred a phd student to florida to to do some work now what happens with the with the virus it infects the cell it injects its dna on the host dna and the cell is transformed into cancerous and and and of course the tumor grows multiplies so if you treat the tumor you're not actually treating the causative agent you rather eliminating and which might relapse what this medicine is doing is that it's not only uh lysing the cells but you can see that the the genome is being released is being spewed out and this is a microscopic observation but if you measure what is coming out and what genome is this it's clear that this is a viral genome if you use pcr to test which are much more specific in a dose response manner so it means you don't need higher doses of product to achieve this now at least we know that with the combination of this traditional medicine you killing the tumor but also exposing the virus and you can now zap it with underrated overalls and clear which is kind of a concept of cure and and so this now opens up a line of products that are ready for clinical research for clinical trials and education i say this because we do not have traditional medicine hospitals in south africa so a lot of the clinical trial work will have to perform in conventional hospitals which are led by doctors and nurses and pharmacists which is positive for us because then it creates an atmosphere for respective respectful and collaboration with health practitioners because we don't hand these products we the healers are part of the recess process they don't stay outside as we do all of this work because they have an insight and a vested interest into this work they know better these products it also contributes to inter-professional education and and of course it has potential to contribute to the growing of the economy because once you do clinical trials you need to move to sustainable agriculture so you can't harvest in the wild we need to grow these plants and such that when you commercialize you don't commercialize things from the wild but that's that so in kwazulu-natal we've been asking our government to spare us about 11 000 hectares of land for agriculture such that we can probably create just in agriculture 22 000 jobs and of course there's other logistics that flow with that just to acknowledge and we work with a range of stakeholders on on in my left is babu kumalo and and babuk said there's the catholic these old men have passed on and but the work still goes on we're in touch with their families and we've got various labs that we work with on biology immunology chemistry and in the range of things we also acknowledge and here on the on the right with his son wearing green top and other colleagues who came from canada and in the states we acknowledge the various funders that funds this work in various stages and of course the colleagues from uh florida and you may not see not at least has got a very dark skin and this is not smiling so you can't even see her teeth from um here in devon and she was doing the work on kaposi and but we have a team of young vibrant scientists who are doing all these um work i just write grants and reports they they've got their brains around themselves the majority are girls and they're doing very well and i just want to say thank you for this opportunity once more thank you so very much uh professor for sharing from your wealth of knowledge experience and expertise and you mentioned the importance of bringing solutions self-reliance and not only depend on big farmer and with the product from from the end so more of a reverse pharmacology thank you so very much i've noted the questions but will also attend during the q and a session thank you prof at this point i also have to to share that we've consulted with prof colleen a number of times from the ut because we're also trying to navigate our way in this space and it's time he has opened his door and welcomed us thank you very much prof colleen and our last uh speaker what that speaker for today yes time is run first uh is mr daniel dima and he will be giving a presentation title leveraging fourth industrial revolution choose to leapfrog iks advancements off to you daddy program director thank you pro for the opportunity uh thank you [Music] uh to susta for invitation thank you to my fellow panelists they are senior to me and they are people that i also look up to in terms of what they are able to achieve in their respective fields let me also thank the audience people that are tuning in into this seminar mine is going to be quite a short one and i think i'm i'm given a platform after such uh brilliant presentations and uh i was noting down quite a lot of things but mine is just to um do the the the you know the the presentation on some of the work that we do some of the you know proposed frameworks in enhancing uh the indigenous knowledge system research and development activities so it's going to be a hybrid of the work that we do and the work that we think can be done to enhance the research and the outputs so in terms of the the company that i work for the south african biotech company [Music] we have proprietary by manufacturing process for a manufacturing biomolecules proteins enzymes we have also a second platform which is the convergence of bioinformatics and artificial intelligence and i think the presentation will be expanding on this platform and our value chains on by prospecting of our indigenous biodiversity hot spots in search of these novel biological molecules that are used both in diagnostics and in therapeutics so we do development manufacturing and distribution of products henceforth this is some of the management team that i work with across different departments so let me start in essence what uh prof uh matibe and prof kalini presented was the workflow you know in terms of science uh aspect of the of the iks and how we process this knowledge and translate it into products that are able to provide health care to to to the people so this is the current workflow which is normally done in a laboratory space where you get a plant you are able to extract the material and then you have these compounds that are extracted and purified using different methods then you characterize them obviously using some machinery then you are able to do pharmacological activities uh in you know sort of looking into different diseases so this is the the the sort of straightforward kind of work that has to be correct that has to be done in as far as getting the you know the plant material or shrub and processing it and being able to assess so what we sort of looking into is um actual genomic data of this species and what we are doing also even though we don't do actual plants we do environmental genomics which can also be um you know sort of uh copied into the same framework because this the framework works across different genomic data sets so we do sequencing of the of the of the material that we harvest and then we are able to then get the genomic data and store that data on our higher servers the high-performing computers and you can also do extraction of the material and looking for certain proteins or looking for those compounds that spoke about but what we do as a company is the leverage of the machine learning deep learning algorithms to assess the genomic data and profiling including the the genome that codes for specific proteins that are active ingredients within the formulations or the genome that codes for such a particular biologics so that we leapfrog and we accelerate the process of actually identifying and modernizing the the research around the space so we are able to then be able to provide prediction models that are able to tell us which targets or which diseases can this particular target i mean this particular you know a sample be able to target so we are able to also assess the secondary metabolites from the synthetic gene clusters that are coming from this kind of samples so our kind of research looks into leveraging on ai to ensure that we first track the recess process to ensure that as and when we do uh extractions etc in you know in these value chains and we do that with speed and precision because the genomic data which is which is scientifically backed will give us an idea sorry of how we can defrock and and leverage the foster desert revolution tools in terms of what we have done as a company we have done the convergence of ai and bioinformatics where we are able to get this genomic data and load it onto our server and we are able to do bioinformatics processing and machine learning processing in that regard we are able to map different species or different um you know environmental samples and they are able to be characterized properly so that when we get into the laboratory in terms of development we are able to frustrate that process with precision however there are other technologies that are being used in terms of being able uh to to to buy prospect and to get as as many uh um as diverse off of material as possible using digital tools i think we've seen tron that are now being used i think it is high time that we we modernize the way in which we even harvest i know that at times is very spiritual process but i think in terms of environmental sampling we can live for some of these technologies so what is the global overview plan to drive trucks as a segment you know we're looking at nearly 30 billion dollars around 2017 and this year alone is close to 40 billion dollars with the annual growth rate of about 5.9 percent and and and we know very well that uh you know most of these you know plant species that are used in traditional medicine are actually extracts um in in certain modern modern medicine so these trucks you can think about some of the tunnels the trucks that we consume which especially especially medicine for flu most of them are actually made up of extracts so this market covers that space but we also have other species that are extracted you know from different parts of the world that are co-formulating different plant species in terms of the the digital plan we're looking at you know how scientists and traditional knowledge holders work together to create value and synergies but more importantly using science as a backup or as a foundation to ensure that we are we meet compliance you know for regulated processes that so that we don't view traditional medicine as a complementary medicine but as a mainstream medicine for for the people that prefer to to to use so i i i don't see a difference personally between [Music] you know indigenous knowledge and modern medicine because you know traditionally you know we used to cure very sophisticated diseases and i think now it's time for us to find that symbiotic relations between traditional medicine and modern science so that we can go about doing precision medicine we know that you know especially as africans that we have a symbiotic relationship with our environment our environment is our healer because provides that with food and medicine and environment including the air that we breathe so we need to find ways in which we can search for diseases within our genomes mapping them back into this database that i'm talking about that uses ai so that we're able to understand this old and asian symbiotic relationship how it translates to the modern healthcare but we also need to make sure that we we we protect the ip that is developed by the indigenous knowledge holders so that we can store it for future generation so this proposed model of basically being able to store the genomic data of this indigenous species is important because it is the information that will be stored and be used for generations to come because when you store something in a form of data you basically store the actual makeup of such a material that you're storing so that as science evolves we are able to remake and remodel those kind of species for future use i will end their program director these are some of our partners stakeholders investors and research and development collaborators the research that we do around ai machine learning which is the convergence of mathematics and and and deep learning etc it's funded by tia with the support of department of science innovation and this platform has been regarded as a national competency and we would like to open it up to researchers in this space so that they're able to refrog their research and get other exciting you know findings from the research that they do from some of the species that they are working with i thank you program direct thank you so very much at danielle for sharing what you do and you highlighted the importance of the effort between traditional medicine and modern science uh with an intent of creating value and synergy and when i was looking also at your discovery workflow how innovative is your technology especially when you're talking about genomic data and we know you know how the genomic sequence played a pivotal role you know when kovite 19 emerged thank you so very much for that informative presentation um colleagues uh at this point i'd like to thank all our presenters it's been very informative it's been thought provoking it's been enriching and now we are moving to the q and a session and i think the best way uh to tackle this session is to take the question as they come so we'll start with the first question and i will give the questions two questions first the first round uh in terms of answers to our panelists two questions each and then if we still have more time we'll take further questions we also wanted to take a hand if we if time will allow us but for this time for this session we have up until 11 40. so the first question um can i direct it to danielle is a traditional medicine could become i think a traditional medicine counted over ellopathy that's the first question for for daniel can you note that and the second question uh prof mamza can you please ask oh it's um it's doctor mobadi vincent can you please ask proof mumsa to provide the study title and if it is possible to assess the study from the university repository that is for you prof and the first question for prof galeni is only 72 percent of black south african what is your finding on the white south african on the use of traditional medicine i am not sure prof if you have an answer for that but that is is the first question for you and then the second question from um for prof motive is from dr bonganingala prof matibe is dr kangala here who has interest in atm you mentioned that patients were reluctant in sharing with their gp if they use atm i'm wondering how far are we as a nation to have an open mind and accept the alternative treatment as it's done in other countries such as china prof motive that is your second question and prof galeni your second question is is there any current effort by the government or research sector to develop a database or instrument similar to the samf south african medical medicine formulary aimed at doctors pharmacists nurses dentists and other concerned with safe and cost effective atm prescribing given the wealth of research already conducted on commonly used atm to treat both acute and chronic illness and that is from spa gamble and the second question to danielle um [Music] i'm not sure with a specific question but i'll give it to daniel i'm not sure whether it's directed to a specific panelist well they're conducted in areas where you are almost guaranteed that people in that location are using traditional medicine i think let's share this one for prof uh because the practical evidence was from prof motive and profession in terms of the studies that we've done i think that question is directly i'll give it to all the panelists if you can also tackle that and the second question for daniel traditional medicine links the physical to the spiritual how will then do clinical tests on spiritual issues i hope colleagues you've got that and now i'll hand over to you i hope you've noted which one is your question thank you so very much i'll hand over to to to to to to danielle you can start yeah thank thanks pro for for for the opportunity thanks to um you know our colleagues who attended the session for the questions uh the first question around traditional medicine versus hellopathy i think we we have to be honest to say that you know maybe maybe it is my opinion that they there is no traditional medicine and there is no western medicine medicine is medicine it is universal what matters is you know whether it works you know to cure a particular disease or not i think when we refer to western medicine we think we we talk about western inventions of of of how medicine is made packaged and distributed or even administered to the patients which is part of the industrialization processes that they went through and modernization that they went through however that does not mean that some of the traditional medicines that we have cannot be administered similarly to the western medication so i don't see western medication as above tradition null medicine or the so-called traditional medicine or vice versa i see both as functionally important for our health care i hope that answers your question uh i wanna touch base on the on the on on another question that was raised you know around the traditional medicine links uh uh you know to physical nature and the spiritual nature uh you you can't really do clinical trials uh uh on a spiritual uh um you know sort of uh you know activities that one has to go through the person that follows traditional um roots in terms of healing but i do believe that you know in terms of medication that is administered there has thereafter it is a medication that can still go through the process of evaluation scientific evaluation to understand the compounds that exist within such medication or go as far as understanding the genomic data of such species and storing it actually for future you know generations in terms of you know being able to really develop such a particular plan i think we have seen that through global warming drought and many other global challenges that we are running out of forests we are running out of our pride of these hospitals we are trying all means to salvage them if our traditional healers are unable uh to to to to find some of the you know all shrubs or all plants that they used to find you know initially it will be important for us to stall so that the data can still be used in our own version of modern medicine thank you broken directly thank you mr endima and prof motive um yes thank you thank you very much thank you chad percent really um i think that the the question at first was whether i could provide the actual title of the the study that we did and whether they can access it from the university repository yes yes the answer is yes to both questions i think if you just said um i'm not sure um i can send um the title really of the study let me just say it even before i type it um it's as i said it does for a master's project it's concurrent use of traditional medicine and western medicine perceptions of traditional healers health professionals and patients at the regional hospital in limpopo province and it was conducted by vincent mogoka who was it who's a qualified pharmacist and actually works at that hospital that regional hospital i think in my presentation i said it was in pumalanga but it's actually in proper provinces just that historically i knew that area to be under uh but now with new borders it's slim purple so yeah that that's that's a dissertation can be we are in the in the process of writing out an article for publication but the study can be accessed through the investor repository and the next question i don't remember what the question was but there was a question relating to the study and i think that is referring to what i presented the question is whether the the study was conducted in an area where we knew the people would be using traditional medicine or something to that i'm not sure how it's phrased but it seems to be asking that but my answer to that question would be where in south africa do you think you you would find people who do not use traditional medicine if i can put it that way if you get into an area and want to do a study on traditional medicine are there areas that you know for a fact that people do not use traditional medicine and therefore you wouldn't go there i'm not sure about that but what i know is from just um reading previous studies from just doing literature survey it tells us that a large part of the population in south africa used traditional medicine and that has been referenced there's a reference that we we have used that quote 72 percent of black south africans and i wouldn't know about white south africans and they are you know the prevalence of traditional medicine news but that is what we do my answer would be that you you just pick a convenient area for you to do a study it might be an area where you come from might be an area close to where you work it might be any area of interest but that study would be legitimate um yeah i think that's that's that's those are the two questions you referred to first year's pros uh the last part was about uh the reluctance of patients uh sharing with their gp and um the participant is asking if uh he's actually wondering how far are we as a nation to have an open mind and accept the alternative treatment as it is and in other countries such as china i think he was requiring for your comment on that um i truly believe that you know covet in how it came upon us as a pandemic and how you know we we scrambled around in trying to find solutions to how to address or manage the pandemic it really propelled the the role of traditional medicine onto the center stage and i think we all know the history behind that so with that i believe that there's now you know willingness for people now to be open-minded about seeing the role that traditional medicine can play and if you continue having these conversations open conversations about the role that traditional medicine plays in health in caring part of the health burden in a society it would help in you know going forth it's really about the fact that people have to accept that there is the use of traditional medicine that is the one thing it doesn't help for us to keep questioning whether that is true or or false because it's a reality it is being used and the patients who go to the clinics would also have been people who use these medicines so that compels anyone who is a healthcare provider and who services patients to be aware of this and acknowledge that we cannot keep chastising patients or criticizing them the best you could do is advise them from an informed basis if you know how traditional what traditional medicine is what it's used for how it's used you'll be able to advise patients accordingly instead of us always wanting to revert to saying do not use and in that way if if we are open-minded about it as healthcare the conversation should keep going the other thing is there are people you know there are healthcare providers who are open-minded already who really do have you know a view that traditional missions should be put in the the rightful space beside conventional medicine but because there are no proper guidelines in place it puts this kind of healthcare workers in a psychological um dissonance if i might say you know ethical dilemma because now they would be advising patients out of their own discretion which then might be clashing with their profession or with the with the ethical code they are operating in and and such kind of advice is usually done on an informal basis and therefore when we do studies on perception these um healthcare workers would never tell that they do advise patients to do that because they have that kind of dissonance they have that kind of conflict within themselves regarding the clash with their profession or with their you know their work um i believe that we should just keep these conversations open and going and it will help thank you thank you very much prof um and proof kalini thank you program director i think let me start by dissing this myth of west and as as you know we we give the west a lot of credit when they are bioperiods there's a lot of pharmaceutical drugs in the market that come from african traditional medicine without acknowledgement for and we can name a few products that are in the market at the moment they're not western per se is our knowledge stolen and commercialized elsewhere and packaged back to us so and secondly the concept that medicine is not african is strange because medicine originated from egypt the first medical schools were in egypt not in greece not in europe and so i i want to distance myself from this concept that modern medicine is western as if africa has never created nothing it's false that's the first um caesarean section was conf performed in uganda by the baganda women before europeans came to africa and so i don't want to take this concept that modern medicine is western it is more than medicine i think it i would or conventional medicine let's let's leave it there the second method i just want to state was this question of whites and traditional medicine when i teach my students medical students and i walk in a class i'm going to talk to them about traditional meds and i ask them who amongst you is taking traditional medicine if your hands would come up then i asked them who when you have flu or cold would take garlic ginger and you know all these things and the class would raise their hands and ask what evidence do you have that you know because those are home remedies they're traditional things you just got it from your mother to your grandmother and so there's also a misconception of traditional medicine has only to do with a traditional healer only no this is it is knowledge that is embedded in societies and that we access when the the era of kovi then there was this issue of artemisia and noah from madagascar all the shops were cleared of anything that it at mesa all the pharmacies were cleared [Music] do you think they were only cleared by black people no all races everyone wanted to survive and so there's that conception but that is because we are lastly studying african traditional medicine which has its own distinct features and because we do want to uplift those who have been previously oppressed and sidelined we are focusing on them to to valorize their knowledge to polarize their work and there's no point for me in studying a help from england when there are many helps or south africa that needs to be to do a lot of work on so that's the context i will i will start to preface my my answer the second part has to do with the database the challenge with the database is that our regulatory processes at the moment are incomplete so sapra does not have a system to register african traditional medicines at the moment so you don't have a product that is registered at the moment and classified as an african traditional medicines that has been gone gone through the rigor of science and clinical trials and secondly uh is that even the council for traditional health practitioners is not yet in place to register and recognize the practitioners of traditional medicine so and and so that's what becomes a trick because um you know we are looking at really as getting essential traditional medicines on a list and so that's that's what other countries like ghana have gone gone ahead they've got to have a list of essential traditional medicines that you find in their hospitals for treating patients and so we're still backward in south africa in that regard i i can't remember what was it about clinical trials that that i need to answer and but uh oh i don't know whether it's linked with spirituality or not i can't remember the question now but the the the context is that um if we do want uh to put these products and the traditional healers i'll probably use this is rule here not not i don't know how it is other languages he couldn't do where's his way where hila says i have my bag of tricks i use it on my patients but in the context of these pandemics like hiv covet and other things i have something that i think i can put it i really make it available for development such that it's widely available to help the nation to help the nations and so the only way to take this forward uh is and that you can then make sure that they're available widely is there is the root at the moment globally is that you go through these processes of clinical trials and and things like that and that is important it don't take away anything from what the healer does with their patient in their space thank you thank you so very much prof palani and mr daniel improv motivated uh for for this uh session we will take one question for each um for each panelist and i i hope we'll be able to to answer all the questions but if time doesn't allow us to do that we can always uh write um the panelists can address the question even after the the webinar okay this question is directly i was saying some help say if you take them at the end maybe we can take one or two for now i'm not seeing any hand on my side um okay prof can then since you can see the hand can you oh [Music] um and thank you again for the invitation to this informative session i have only one passion which is very uh critical especially to the sector as the african traditional medicine sector it talks about collaboration beyond research for for the indigenous knowledge holders at this point we'll be talking about traditional health practitioners themselves because they are the knowledge holders in terms of african traditional medicines are there any provisions of development in training for the traditional practitioners who are already in the space of commercialization of traditional medicine so that they may be uh well capacitated in terms of how far are we in terms of research how far are we in terms of the product development for african traditional medicine i just know of a program in in the uk that end which is the prior learning uh on on traditional medicine and practices that is led by professor galeni are there any other of these um trainings that are provisioned to be to be capacitating traditional practitioners because i'm very much interested as i've recently joined the space of uh the development of african traditional medicine to to make products and to to to professionalize the the use of traditional medicine to our consumers together there's a quite a number of initiatives uh and firstly if the ut where our facilitator is they do have a project funded by idc uh around this aspect so they're working lastly with the communities in the wild around where the university is i know the innovation hub and in counting has been also training on entrepreneurship and i know there's a few healers from quesadilla who have benefited from that program and and which is really looking at entrepreneurship and and we have just been funded by cedar and to work on two aspects of again entrepreneurship and commercialization one is around the agriculture because we can't commercialize push commercialization from uh the wild and there needs to be a program around entrepreneurship and growing these these crops farming and and then because that's then sustainable and then we'll also be looking at uh how we train healers around entrepreneurship and the business of selling medicines but within the kind of compliance and regulatory space that they need to comply with and so ours is new it has not even been launched one by cedar and we're still working on the business plan and all of those things before it can be launched but the innovation hub has already been in existence for a while they're funded by the department of science and innovation and and i think the university of free state are equally going to be coming in they're funded by tier to support these kinds of initiatives that in the different different spaces so yeah there are initiatives that are coming on board the igc tier and the range of funders in this place it's just that it's a new concept so it's rolling out here slowly i'm sure dr tozama can also comment on the vut experience thank you prof kaleni and you're very correct it's a new concept and it's a complex space on its own however when we started at vut um we started a pro a simple biomedical procedures uh short learning program and with the intent of training traditional health practitioners that are in the valve so when we started in our database that time we had about 400 thps and thus far we've managed to train a hundred so we have not completed the old valve or certibag if i can be more specific um so uh that is the simple biomedical procedure so so the facilitators themselves were traditional healers or traditional practitioners that were trained prior and then they were facilitating the program and one was a staff member that were working with who was a scientist and also a traditional health practitioner and we worked closely with the executive or the traditional practitioners that are in the file but the space also as i said it's it's a very complex type of space but there's a work that is happening at beauty thank you i'm not sure if profmortibe you like to add or danielle you'd like to comment uh no from my side um i have nothing to add i'm actually just aware of the activities in uk said then with prof kalini and the investor of the free state with pragmatic visa [Music] on your side do you have anything that you like to add no no i'm not i'm not going to add anything uh program director i agree with both profs that you know and i see that there's still a lot of work to be done um i just want to emphasize something i think prof also mentioned it that you know africans were already you know developing medicine pre-colonial era and what i want to share is that the current medicine that we we have some of the drugs that we we consume are made up of proteins and those proteins are coated by the genomic sequences those genomic sequences you go to some of the databases you realize that they actually come from the plant species or plant shrubs or or or some some of the the heps that are found around the world so so so there's the the contrast between how we apply uh medicine [Music] may be different but the the purpose or the objective is still the same so what i'm saying is that you know as s and when we expand on the repertoire of research we need to ensure that we we don't only present the knowledge but we also preserve the only material that that can never be erased which is the genomic data thank you program direct yeah thank you mr dima i'm very aware that there's a hand there was a hand but i can't see it now um it just disappeared on my nabi sir yes it was young you can go ahead hello oh okay traditional doctor i facilitate the establishment of the directorate traditional medicine and professor never knows me uh the problem that is existing in south africa we don't have apology on african traditional medicine and i had to write a book because my daughter was supposed to be a traditional doctor asked me to write it and it's uh it's called a model on african traditional medicine it deals with issues of spirituality it deals with the congregations of traditional health practitioners he deals with tangible and unchangeable issues he deals with at a traditional medicine as a discipline in south africa which is made of knowledge system of all the ethnic groups there is even a cycle there now i am saying this is yeah it's not a question but maybe professor neva will be able to explain when would be of there be a policy on african traditional medicine because i left the department the issue was not addressed and the model was came about because in japan we've got the temperate example system we've got the authority system we've got the native american system i used to represent the department of health at all dsw traditional medicine team i have also because of nothing has happened i cannot even disclose the recipe that i have when people react to the covered jab and the other one some emerging health condition is monkey box it's professor galen with his colleagues doing something so that when it comes to south africa you have to help prepare thank you i am isaac actually a cultural doctor and a medicinal chemist have done research in south africa abroad on issues of uh medicine i went there on a scholarship of pharmacy but i changed to medicinal chemistry because we cultural doctors who deal with products and medicines that force in a particular schedule and i understand pharmacists are there to deal with medicine but they are not in the same categories like traditional health practitioners thank you wow great to hear from you dr mayan long long time uh and and thanks for your contribution even that we have the thp act in place and the draft uh traditional medicine policy and unfortunately i must say that the the problem because since then our ruling party has been caught up in its own factional battles and and and so the the minister who succeeded and dr mantuchna and has had no interest in this and and and currently the current administration are equally in that space so these are things that hamper the development and progression of traditional medicine in south africa as i was counting ghana they've moved and we are still way behind and because of lack of political will and that's the challenge that faces us and these things make sense but i think if those who are in authority uh are mindful of other issues and caught up in ppe scandals and many other things it's just um hampers these developments i must just say as as it is but it's good to hear from you and we are still continuing the work uh we've never stopped actually you brought mr gabinda to me and pulls some of the data i'm sharing here today and and we're still progressing and with that work and lastly on the monkey box i don't know yet who's focusing on that and these things go with funding and and probably when an opportunity to have grants to do that work we might we might start but i maybe i don't know maybe csr or elsewhere i don't know but i've not had anyone doing work on monkeybox yet um but it's great to hear from you prof doc thank you prof matiba i'm not sure if you wanted to say something uh not not in the line of what was raised right now but i saw some interesting question in the chat um if you'd allow me this person andrea nicolas is asking about whether and it's a general question that to all the speakers that the opinion on integration of traditional medicine into psychiatric or psychological care and in my opinion it's a it's a necessity it's a great necessity because um a lot of in terms of diagnosis of these conditions in you know allopathic medicine people who we have seen people who have um say the calling to be a healer being misdiagnosed with different types of mental health disorders and so i believe that having having a traditional healer as part of a healthcare team would kind of help around that and this is expressed or was even expressed in the study that we did that you know traditional healers see themselves as being very helpful in terms of being the ones who initiate treatment or initiate you know alleviation of psychology psychiatric or psychological conditions first before patients go get started on med these drugs which then because of the adverse effects then tend to have those kind of effects where it's like the patient's character has changed and pharmacologically we know that there's a lot of adverse effects that the medicines that are used for psychology for mental health illnesses cause and so that would be my opinion in that you know it would be a great thing to have a traditional healer forming part of that kind of a team a psychiatric or a psychological healthcare team because they would help in that regard to help with the misdiagnosis that occur however we still yeah we still need the the services of the psychiatrist as well as psychotherapists to help that would be my input on that question i don't know i just thought that would be important thank you thank you very much prof um thank you very much for due to time i was actually trusted to end at 11 40 and i'm looking at that time now i think at this point it's been a very engaging discussion and we still have a number of questions that have not been addressed then i would like to request the organizers to to make sure that the participants that had dropped those questions they do get their response from our panel list uh thank you so very much but before we come to an end i'd like to to request from our true speakers a one minute wrap up something maybe you might have forgotten uh or maybe came up during the discussion and you or maybe might have forgotten it during your presentation something that perhaps you you have more of a one minute wrap up type of a message um can we start with a prof uh fellaini and just one matter for me that professor guma has just raised on the chat around the how to apportion intellectual property to an individual healer when these things are community based uh unfortunately i'm not we are not lawyers we are scientists and we don't know how to apportion that and because we take the person who comes to us at face value and we don't have time to be researching that but i think the department of science and innovation through the nixon national indigenous knowledge systems office are kind of putting systems to address that but i'm not a legal practitioner i don't know i won't be able to answer that at all but i thought it's good to put it here on the table thank you thank you prof and mr dimmer program director i don't have much to add other than to [Music] thank the the you know susta and uh and the rest of the panelists for the opportunity thank you thank you thank you and prof motiva uh i also don't really have anything more to add accept that thanks for providing this platform for us to keep sharing and to keep the conversations going it also helps in in sort of people making the necessary connections there are a lot of people who are expressing interest in traditional methods traditional medicine issues particularly research kind and i'm i'm happy that we will keep these conversations going and as i said all of our researchers to translate to positive outcomes in terms of public health thank you very much thank you very much for the opportunity thank you very much thank you very much to our true speakers for such an enriching presentation and discussion and also the audience it was a very engaging audience thank you so very much at this point my summons ends here now i have to head over to nrf susta and to do the cousin remarks and the voters thanks and to do that is mr michael ellis um thank you bye thank you so much uh um for for that what what what an incredible session uh thank you so much for your very good facilitation of the session it's been incredibly enlightening you know at uh nrf system we are we're passionate about establishing these critical and impactful conversations about science and technology i mean as a broader organization the nrf has this vision of research for a better society and without conversations like we've had today i believe that realizing that vision of research for a better society is not possible um you know having uh providing them creating these spaces where where people can get together and have critical conversations you know i was so encouraged by you know almost 30 questions coming up in the in the chat box from participants today and really this this dialogue that has has ensued through the day i think has really been so meaningful so thank you very much um for that um you know we've also as the nrf fairly recently adopted what we've termed our engaged research framework which really seeks to ensure that richer research in south africa is conducted for community but also with community it's about ensuring and looking at how knowledge is embedded within the fabric of our society and i think that's become so clear through this conversation that how knowledge is really embedded um in in south african society and african society um i think you know we've gone one step further we laid out objectives this morning of ensuring that we profile traditional the field of traditional medicine and that we present key findings and viewpoints which our speakers i think have so eloquently done today but i think we've gone one step further and also dispelling a lot of myths about this area and i think it was prof walani who said you know traditional medicine is modern medicine and i thought that was a wonderful way of of putting it and almost dispelling a myth and interested one statement um so really it's a it's a it's an honor and a privilege for me just to thank um firstly our facilitator um dr tosama rabbani and really thank you so much for enabling this conversation to take place in such a open and free and and seamless manner and you've really done that so incredibly well today to our speakers um without you without bringing these different aspects of traditional and modern medicine together and your incredible insight and knowledge of this area a conversation like this wouldn't be possible so thank you so much for making the time and setting aside the time to be with us today and just share these insights and with the broader community and then of course very importantly and i almost say most importantly the our attendees we've been quite substantive in this conversation today and and very vocal and engaging you know i think we need to be not only taking in knowledge but really having a conversation about knowledge and i think that's definitely taking place from the active participation of of all the attendees today so thank you very much to each and every one of you for attending and for your contributions um to the session it's been wonderful to hear um from the attendees in the session i'd also just like to finish off by thanking our internal organizat organizing team and specifically mr causa and miss woody um you guys have done an incredible job in setting all of this up and getting it advertised and out there and ensuring that it runs as a seamless program today so with that uh as interester we'd really just like to thank you all um for your team attendance and really please do participate in our future conversations these critical conversations about science and technology we appreciate um each and every one of your participation in the session thank you very much um to all of you doctor shall i hand over back to you or shall we close the session with that thank you so very much i think that then this means that that we've come to an end thank you colleagues beautiful day [Music] [Music] you