By Chioma Obinna
Stakeholders have canvassed the need to develop local products in the health and lifestyle sectors to international standards according to best global practices.

This is necessary to enable the medium, Small and micro businesses to update their skills and maximise their potentials. It will also enable them to market their products as well as identifying credible business partners and network for growths.

Briefing the press on the 8th Trade promotion fair for health & Lifestyle Goods and Services, the chief Executive Officer of Kellow West African Nigeria Limited, Ms. Olukemi Ilori stated that experience has shown that made in Nigeria Goods from the health sector are of extremely high quality, but very poorly packaged.

“The double hydra-headed monster of inappropriate marketing skills and inadequate finance have been identified as the ain cause of poor packaging.

Other factors, he pointed out, include lack of knowledge about branding, inability to network and batter for cost reduction. Ilori said as a way of checking this, Kellow Trade Promotion Fair organises workshops for practitioners and entrepreneurs to help highlighted cheaper ways of creating a market presence like social media networks, search engines for packaging ideas and information etc.

“More importantly, highly qualified and skills’ specialists help impact knowledge on best global practices in labelling and packaging at the Fair”.

On the positive influence of the annual Fair, Ilori said that it promotes the economic growths of Nigeria and West African Sub Region, facilitates the avenue for the improvement and promotion of made in Nigeria Goods.

Rallying point

Continuing she said, the Fair encourages the upgrade and preservation of indigenous while at the same time try to reduce the rates of its loss.

“It is also a rallying point for critical agencies to interact with businesses, the public and other stakeholders in the health and lifestyle sector which controls a huge portion of global economy and is the pivot of our well being”.

On standardisation of herbal products, Prof Olukemi Odukoya of Department of Pharmacognosy, University of Lagos, who picked holes on standardisation of herbal products explained that no country in the world has succeeded in standardisation of herbal medicines but only succeeded on minimum dosage requirements of herbal medicine.

He said that the most important issues in standardisation are safety and efficacy.

She pointed out that even China have not been able to come up with an ideal standard for herbal products yet their products are major exports globally.

“What the countries has done globally is to give minimum dosage requirements of every herbal medicine that is why the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has not registered any herbal medicine. What NAFDAC is doping is listing.”

“If you have to standardise, you have to start from the source of the raw material. And the sources of our raw materials are not regulated. Usually you take herbal medicine twice a day, first thing, in the morning and last thing at night when the body is at rest and it is expected that with that space of time, the drug will do its works, detoxified and eliminated.

She called on the government to put structures on ground that would allow for the parallel running of alternative medicine and orthodox in the nation’s Primary Health System.

Warning that the country may not attain its vision of health for all until herbal medicine is given a proper place in the healthcare delivery system, she stressed that incorporation of herbal medicine in the Primary Healthcare would ensure safety, affordability, accessibility and strengthened referral system of the country.