After passing a safety test in animal trials conducted by scientists at the government’s Natural Chemo-therapeutics Research Institute (NCRI), a diabetes concoction that has received several endorsements and testimonies is being transformed into a tablet, syrup or injection.
David Ssenfuka, the herbalist who has been dispensing this herb, having picked knowledge from his deceased grandmother told URN in an interview that they held a meeting with the National Drug Authority on Tuesday, to guide them on what they require to start trying the drug which has been code named SD2018 on humans.
To be able to progress into human trials, they need to have either made the medicine which currently given either in liquid and dried leaf form into the internationally accepted medical standards of either a pill, syrup or injection form.
Ssenfuka says he has contacted scientists in Makerere University to help him with this and a drug development plan has already been completed.
According to results from animal studies conducted for a period of six months in rats, the drug which was tested for whether it has curative components and its effect on organs like the liver and the heart were all promising.
A NCRI dossier seen by URN shows that the rats that were induced in the lab to develop diabetes were put on repeated treatment with SD2018 for 28-days and there was a significant decrease in key chemicals that offset diabetes with no effect on the liver, yet diabetes is associated to degenerative changes to the liver.
The study also indicates that the concoction has properties that protect the heart from damages to it arising from the disease since it was seen to control high blood sugar and fats in the blood. In the other arm of the study, the rats were not given any medication and had started developing changes to the organs that come with diabetes.
For now, however, the drug is still being dispensed under the category of community use with no clear and documented amounts that should be given for a patient to get better. Ssenfuka says he is still employing the same technique his grandmother used where she picked herbs from forests, mixed them and gave patients who presented with several symptoms which the diabetic present with.
He says while treating his first patient more than five years ago, he wasn’t aware he was treating diabetes but the patient testified having sugar levels reduced, reduced frequency in urination especially at night and other symptoms. But, he says, with the government, he plans to start planting the needed herbs on a large scale and hopes if approvals, go on swiftly this will take him a year.
Such testimonies have been made by many other people living with diabetes who were treated with Ssenfuka’s drug and many more continue to frequent his Kasubi based Leonia NNN Medical Research and Diagnostic Clinic which is often crowded with patients with a wide range of complications, including high profile individuals.
NDA Public Relations Officer Abiaz Rwamwiri says the authority can not only base on these testimonies and endorsements to give him a go-ahead. He says NDA will only offer him approval for general use when the human trials are complete and he starts mass production.
When asked how long this process usually takes, Rwamwiri said they handle applications on a first-come, first-serve basis but a normal process when everything needed is intact takes three months. He says Ssenfuka only contacted them on Friday last week and that soon they will visit his site for the factory to see if he passes the premises checklist.
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