New Ayurvedic Drugs Control Authority soon

by Surekha Galagoda

A national Ayurvedic Drugs, cosmetics devices control Authority will be set up to handle standardisation, manufacturing, sales, promotion and marketing of drugs and cosmetics.

The Act to establish the Authority has been drafted and will be approved by the cabinet together with the new Ayurvedic and Pharmaceutical Act.

The government is planning to replace the Ayurvedic and Pharmaceutical act as the existing Act is 46 years old.

Once the Ayurvedic drugs, cosmetics, devices control authority is set up the authority would in a position to check all ayurvedic products from the raw material to the finished product on aspects such as standardisation, manufacturing, sales, promotion and marketing as well, said Registrar Ayurvedic Medical Council Dr. Danister Perera.

Once the Acts are passed in Parliament the manufacturers will be graded as International, national and provincial manufacturers but they will have to manufacture their ayurvedic preparations adopting Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) to ensure the quality of the drugs.

He said the market in Europe is strict and they insist on quality therefore GMP should be practised.

Most of all there should be capacity building, technology and human resources to improve the industry as there is a value for everything in the modern world be it massage or medicine as people all over the world have become health conscious and they understand the value of ayurveda which is not harmful.

Dr. Perera said that herbs known as green gold have the highest monetary value among the natural resources. Each plant is like a factory containing several components and no plant has been screened fully to date.

One-hundred-and-twenty effective drugs are based on plants and some compounds in these drugs cannot be synthesised. At present the plant species is more than 420,000 and around 70,000 of them are used as medicines.

He said that in countries where the per capita income is high the number of plant species is less while countries with a low per capita income have a higher number of plant species.

Therefore countries with a high number of plant species is rich in traditional medicine. Dr Perera said that there are more than 3,500 known plant species in Sri Lanka and of them 25% are endemic and our country being a bio diversity hot spot has a rich culture of traditional medicine.

He said that allopathic drugs have side effects while there are no solutions for some disease such as cancer, diabetes, cholesterol and hypertension. A solution for MRSA, the hospital infection was found by the aborigines using tee tree oil one of the top 10 herbal medicines in the world.

Gotukola for which we have the patent is used as a memory booster as well as a memory enhancer. Dr. Perera said that Europe also has a herbal tradition but it is single herb while in Asian countries it is poly herbal which is prepared scientifically and proportionately using herbal, mineral and animal substances.

He said at present the herbal market is growing at an average 15-20%. India has a separate Council to promote the export of ayurvedic exports. According to them they have not even captured 5% of the export market. the potential is enormous .

In Sri Lanka we have started a commercial level cultivation project and identified the herbal plants that should be grown on a commercial scale which includes katuwalbatu (Solanum Virginianum L), amukkara and Araththa.

We have provided the technical knowledge and the plants to farmers in selected villages and there are buy back contracts to purchase the harvest. In addition we have set up nurseries to plant medicinal plants such as rath handun and devadaara (Cedrus deodara Roxb).

Felling medicinal plants/trees for timber, deforestation and burning forests are some of the major problems for Sri Lanka to lose its medicinal plants, said Dr Perera. According to statistics 28 firms imported herbal materials to the value of Rs. 143 mln in 2005.

surekha@sundayobserver.lk