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As a veteran in the practice of African traditional medicine, Quincy Ayodele stands out as a pioneer in modernizing the practice, her consistency, and her seeming resilience.

Now 63, household name, Quincy, who was recently invited by the WHO and the Federal Ministry of Health, has agreed to integrate with orthodox medical practices. A WHO committee member, and an expert for the development of African traditional medicine at Geneva, Namibia, etc representing practitioners in Africa in the field; Quincy tells WO why herbal medicine has become indispensable to global health systems.

You have been consistently in the herbal medicine practice for so long that you have become an authority of a sort on it. How have you been able to stand for so long despite all the controversies of the past?

Whatever we say we will do at Quincy is what we will do with herbal medicine and nature will not fail us. We have used our practice to help a lot of people so I can say categorically that we have developed it so far. We are now in the 2nd decade and just recently, celebrated the African Traditional Medicine  day and I happened to be part of the team that formed this year’s theme from WHO: 2nd decade of ATM Practice in Africa- the progress so far.

What progress have you made so far?

As an expert, I have the authority to speak even on behalf of African member-states. To crown it all, the Federal Ministry of Health called us together last week and actually gave me an award of recognition. The recommendation that WHO has made that we should integrate African Traditional Medicine into Orthodox medicine and existing healthcare systems of member-states, in this case, Nigeria, we implemented first at Quincy, so we happen to be the first integrated practice in Nigeria.

How were you able to achieve this integration?

Quincy has only been practising traditional medicine before using all these medicinal plants in their natural state and then my daughter joined us after her medical training in the US. She insisted we had to meet up with international standards so that it can be easy for integration. It was a battle between us, but she won.

When you talk of international standards, what do you mean? Were you not meeting international standards before?

She said: “No, Mummy, you cannot be pounding herbs inside mortar anymore.” Most of our medicinal plants are now encapsulated though some are still in their natural forms.

She actually has moved us to the next level and this has been recommended to spread into other African nations especially starting from Nigeria. Most have been standardized to meet up market expectations in case we are exporting. We do our own research and probably some clinical trials at our own level so that it would become acceptable to everybody.

On the local level, what was your response to the COVID-19 pandemic?

WHO appointed me as a regional expert advisory committee member on the COVID-19 response. That was where I actually had a battle with them. When COVID came, they tried to look for their own cure, Orthodox medicine tried a lot of things but they couldn’t catch the virus properly so WHO told all the member-states to look inwards. Our own Minister of State for Health, Senator Mamora, called selected practitioners together. Quincy sprang into action because they looked up to me and that was when Madagascar came and when I looked at the ingredients of Madagascar herbs, I told them if the active ingredient is not there, it cannot work for COVID. Because of the symptom it presented to us, cough and everything, if Ewe Iko is not there, then it cannot work.

What is Ewe Iko and what does it have to do with COVID-19?

When I started, I insisted I was not going to give my herbs English names. We quickly sprang into action. If we know the symptoms and  lab scientists test the bloodwork, we know the solutions because to every sickness, there is a cure in nature. On COVID-19  response, I was able to advise them because they were actually looking for herbal products that they could use to manage COVID-19. We had 100% success using African traditional medicine to manage COVID-19 symptoms with orthodox protocols of WHO to the glory of God.             

But it seems Nigeria and Africa, in general, had a better deal with COVID-19 outcomes

We should actually clap for Nigerians for not neglecting nature because when COVID-19 broke out, they told us African streets would be full of dead bodies like chickens.

That thing really scared me. I knew I wasn’t going to die of COVID-19 anyway, or anyone close to me, because COVID-19 to us, is like asthma. To God be the glory because of these little things that you guys think have no meaning- kola nut, bitter kola, ewedu, efo riro, agbo, that was what saved us.

We walk in the sun a lot. We didn’t lose more than 3,000 people.

Because of that, they wanted to know, what did we do in Africa? They called me as the only practitioner in the midst of professors, scientists, and researchers. I told them we cannot die because we have medicinal plants on our land and we eat them. Some take ube, dates, all these little things we take for granted. COVID-19 has forced everybody to go to nature.

But one thing we seem to be battling with even more than the Western world is increasing infertility. Can herbs help?

We use herbs not only to treat the patient from infertility to conception but managing the pregnancy up till delivery. Integration actually makes the job easy but it makes it easy only for facilities that know their onions. We know the herbs that can contraindicate many of these synthetic medicines so that there are no adverse side effects. Don’t put salt in your eggs, beans. Always try to taste the naturalness of every food you are eating.

You are best known for your slimming. Are you no longer doing that?

Can we ever leave slimming? Obesity is the root cause of most diseases so most of our clients are obese. They may not come for obesity, they may be coming for infertility but if you examine them, you will see that fat is blocking their fallopian tubes. We ask them to lose weight first.

Sometimes they can present with hypertension, and diabetes. Once you remove excess fat, they get better, migraines will go even without giving migraine medication. Obesity is still the core of our competence. I am not talking of those that are ‘adding bottom.’ I am still waiting for 10 years to see the effect of the added silicon because I don’t know how they can carry that around in their bodies.