Tony Edike
20 November 2008
Health Ministers from member states of the Economic Commission of West Africa (ECOWAS) are set to hold a crucial conference in Abuja this month on the research and application of Stem Cell Therapy in the region.
The conference which will take place at the ECOWAS parliament building on 25th November is being summoned by Stem Cell Transplantation for Africa in collaboration with several Federal Ministries including Foreign Affairs, Science and Technology, Health and Environment and Urban Development.
President of the Stem Cell Transplantation Project for Africa, Dr Perry Iloegbunam, who briefed reporters on the conference yesterday, said that the world's leading expert on stem cell technology and President of the Bio-Cellular Research Organization of the United States of America, Professor Eugene Michael Molnar, would be leading a host of other experts to address the conference.
He further disclosed that the conference would be followed by a 2-day training workshop for selected medical doctors from the West African sub-region on the application of the therapy dubbed 'the medicine of the 21st Century.'
According to Iloegbunam, the involvement of the ECOWAS Health Ministers and several Federal Ministries underscored the importance now being attached the world over to stem cell technology adding that Nigeria stood a chance of taking the lead and becoming the major center for its application in the continent.
He explained that stem cell therapy was a revolutionary method of regeneration of cells where transplant of stem cells is used to restore functions to any injured, diseased and debilitated body tissues and organs and consequently cure such hitherto incurable, untreatable or terminal diseases such as cancer, sickle cell, Parkinson's diseases, Hepatitis, Kidney, liver, lungs and heart diseases among others.
He disclosed that it had been a viable addition to the therapeutic profile of medical biotechnology in continental Europe and the Americas since the first patient was treated with it about 130 years ago.
Iloegbunam said that his organization had previously taken bold steps to entrench the therapy in Nigeria through the initiation of certain activities that have culminated in the hosting of several international workshops and seminars in the country including the upcoming ECOWAS Health Ministers' conference.
As a mark of recognition for its work, he added, the Federal Government recently inaugurated the National Committee for the Research and Application of Stem Cell Transplantation Technology in Nigeria.
Urging both the government and the private sector to develop more commitment and interest in the project, Iloegbunam who had spent his life investment in the project, enjoined them to seek ways of encouraging the instant application of the therapy while ensuring that more research into it continue.
"We are in agony of conscience that since about 130 years ago when the first patient was treated with stem cell therapy in Western Europe, the treatment is yet to fully take off in any part of Africa.
We started this project about three years ahead of Asia, but today, the biggest stem cell plant in the world is being set up in Malaysia with full approval and backing of Malaysian government," the Stem Cell project president said.
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