Swaziland Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine, Medicinal and Indigenous Food Plants (SIRMIP)

Background

Swaziland is endowed with a very diversified flora which may be attributed to the range of geographical and climatic zones in the country. She is one of the African countries where the overall plant diversity is at the highest level. Species include plants used by traditional medicinal practitioners (TMPs), plants with proven activity against pests and those with potential as pharmaceuticals and fragrances, as well as edible wild plants.

Many of the edible wild plants and species used in traditional medicine are threatened with extinction because of unsustainable harvesting and great pressure on land for growing cash crops. There is also no adequate documentation of the indigenous knowledge on plant use in the country. The Institute has been established to address these issues. The Institute provides a forum for the meeting of TMPs, orthodox medical practitioners, natural and social scientists, lawyers, agriculturists, nutritionists and policy makers to tackle multifaceted research agenda inherent in nutrition and traditional medicine. The facilities of the Institute will be available for scholars from different parts of the world to carryout research and disseminate their results for human benefit. The multidisciplinary research programme would lead to the development of standardised, safe indigenous medicine from our flora, thus reducing imports on such products.

Mission

The Institute serves as Swaziland’s leading Institution for the design, coordination and execution of multidisciplinary research in traditional medicine, and indigenous wild edible and medicinal plants. It strives to combine the expertise of scientists and TMPs with a view to producing derived pharmaceuticals and promote the use of traditional medicine in national health care, and to create general awareness regarding indigenous food plants.

Objectives

• Promotion of ethnobotanical surveys for indigenous non-cultivated fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants in order to design and maintain a database, documenting the available bioresources and their technological exploitation.
• Provision of a forum for the meeting of researchers on medicinal and food plants with nutritionists and TMPs in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect.
• Collection of seeds of the under-utilised indigenous fruits and vegetables to form a gene bank which could be used to broaden the food base.
• Plant propagation studies in order to conserve biological diversity.
• Isolation and identification of bioactive compounds from plants through activity guided fractionation using chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques.
• Development of the isolated compounds into new drugs for the treatment of common diseases.
• Setting up a staff profile whose expertise will reflect many scientific disciplines such as botany, microbiology and biochemistry.

Staff

The work of the Institute is carried out by full time researchers, technical and administrative staff appointed to the Institute as well as by lecturers in the related faculties of the University of Swaziland or researchers in the research institutes who have interests falling within the areas of ongoing research in the Institute (i.e. Research Affiliates). A Research Affiliate is a person having an approved research project, in progress, with the Institute whether as the sole researcher or as part of a team. The privileges of a research affiliate are also extended to people who officially assist the Institute in an advisory capacity.

Relationship with Herbalists

The emphasis of the research carried out by the Institute is on African food and medicinal plants for which material is locally available. To promote the flow of information from herbalists and people knowledgeable in the herbal remedies, the Institute engages the services of herbalists on consultancy or other basis to assist with the collection and verification of authentic information. All such information is kept confidential by the institute. The name and address of the donor of each recipe is recorded against the recipe such that acknowledgement will be made to the appropriate person in any publication. Adequate remuneration can also be fed back to the appropriate donors from licences to patents. Confidential agreements will be signed as appropriate bearing in mind the provision of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Collaborative research on food and medicinal plants among scientists from different disciplines who traditionally work in isolation would enhance our development capacity in the production of new food and therapeutic materials from our flora which are safe and acceptable to the populace. The development of these products is best approached in a collaborative manner as no single discipline can handle it successfully alone. The Institute provides the necessary forum and facilities for the interaction of scientists and those with indigenous knowledge on plants for a profitable exploitation and management of our bioresources. Insights are also provided into some aspects of our cultural heritage which hitherto has been misunderstood by many.