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The Head of Clinical Pathology at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, College of Health Sciences, University of Ghana (UG), Professor Regina Appiah-Opong has disclosed that the institute is currently investigating the efficacy of several traditional remedies that have "interesting anti-cancer activity".

Prof Appiah-Opong said researchers at the institute were currently investigating a lot of anti-cancer products to find out how safe they were for human use and how they could be packaged for mass production.

Addressing the media on the sidelines of a free breast cancer screening exercise held at the UG Night Market, Prof Appiah-Opong said the investigations formed parts of efforts to encourage production by local herbal medicine practitioners.

"We are not urging people to go immediately you get cancer to take herbal medicine. What we are saying is that make sure that you go for early screening at a hospital where you will be advised what to do and we encourage you to follow that," Prof Appiah-Opong said.

"What we are doing is in support of this, eventually we may come up with a product and it will go through FDA approval, all the necessary regulatory processes and it will be on the market for everybody to use.

"We have found some medicinal products that have interesting anti-cancer activity, not only breast cancer. We have found some that are interesting for prostate, leukaemia and so on".

Programme

The screening exercise was organised by the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research with support from the Female Employees of AngloGold Ashanti Ghana and the UG, Legon Hospital.

Prof Appiah-Opong said aside from the research being conducted in the laboratories, the Institute decided to raise awareness of the illness because of increasing reports of late detection of breast cancer in Africa.

She also encouraged women to seek early treatment for breast cancer which she said could be achieved through frequent screening.

Hundreds of students, staff and traders participated in the screening exercise.