A thirteen member Committee for the Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese (AAK) branch of the Ghana Federation of Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association (GHAFTRAM), has been inaugurated.

The Committee, under the chairmanship of Mr Abubakari Acquah, were sworn into office during the fourth anniversary celebration of the Association.

The celebration was on the theme: "The role of traditional medicine in Ghana towards achieving universal health coverage; the journey so far".

Speaking at the function, Mr John Nii Odai Tettey, Central Regional Head of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), cautioned consumers to ensure that products they bought were registered with the FDA and were also not expired.

Addressing the gathering, he said the FDA office was always ready to offer technical support to manufactures and advised those whose products were not registered to do the needful.

Mr John Kofi Sackey, the Central Regional Chairman of GHAFTRAM, charged the manufactures to produce quality products under good hygienic condition to ensure its efficacy.

He noted that the quality of a product will also alleviate the heavy burden of the sick from purchasing fake and expensive drugs.

Mr. Acquah called for concerted efforts by members to rally behind him to steer the affairs of the Association to help safeguard public health.

The Chairman promised to unite the members to press home their demand for quality products from manufacturers in order to achieve better health care for all.

GHAFTRAM is an association formed by mallams, traditional priests and priestesses, herbalists, among others to promote traditional medicine in the country.

On his part, Mr Eric Dogbadze, who represented Professor Noble Stephen Yeboah of Lucky Herbal Group of Companies, noted that traditional medicine was efficacious and had come to stay.

He was of the view that herbal products passed through quality control processes before being sold on the Ghanaian market and so the public should not hesitate to patronise them, if it was duly registered.

He called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to support traditional medicine to complement orthodox medicine in Ghana.