opoponax (Commiphora erythraea)
11 March 2010
The MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) between IPO and Debre Berhan University has been signed. The signature took place during an official ceremony organised at the University of Debre Berhan, in the presence of university board of teachers, the rector and IPO representatives in loco. It is a condition of the agreement that the Ankober galenical laboratory will be managed by a partnership among the local NGO (Ankober Woreda Development Association), Debre Berhan University and IPO. The objective is to coordinate university students in researches and traineeships, in order to produce low cost herbal medicines for community consumption. Next month, first collaboration activities will be carried out in the laboratory: the training in herbal preparations, addressed to students and laboratory technicians. The aim is to turn the laboratory into a research centre, dedicated to the development of low cost technologies in the health sector, in order to face community health care needs.
05 March 2010
2010 has begun with new projects and activities for IPO, in line with its mission of promoting self-sufficiency and increasing opportunities for people living in the south of the world. In Ankober, in the Amhara Region of Ethiopian highland, mobile clinic activities are keeping on providing medical assistance to an increasing number of people. The health service is now totally run by local health workers, while training activities in medical and pharmaceutical sectors are continuing parallel to one another. Training are producing excellent results, with ever more skilled and qualified nurses.
IPO scientific research network has taken part in the International Congress “Dermatological Care for All: Common Diseases for Neglected People”, carried out in Addis Ababa and Makelle, Ethiopia, from 24 to 27 November 2009. The event, come at its third edition, has been organized by the National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (NIHMP), in collaboration with the Tigray Regional Health Bureau (THB), the University of Mekelle, the Italian Development Cooperation, the International Society of Dermatology (ISD) and the International Institute of Social, Medical, and Anthropological Sciences (IISMAS).
The project “Managing dry land natural gum and aromatic resin production to integrate pastoralists' sustainable economic benefits with desertification control and biodiversity conservation ”, finalized in 2008 with the establishment of several aromatic resins processing and selling cooperatives, is nowadays revealing new opportunities for local communities. Thanks to the scientific studies directed by InfarmaZone Association from Perugia, some researches, assigned to several Italian Universities laboratories, are now in progress in order to evaluate therapeutic properties of Agarsu balsam (Commiphora erythraea) essential oil, an aromatic resin growing in the Horn of Africa arid brush. Each laboratory involved is working on part of the research, publishing the results obtained step by step on open source journals, in order to protect local communities from possible natural resources exploitation by unscrupulous pharmaceutical industries. Tests have been carried out on several viral strains, bacteria and fungi. From the first analyses, the Agarsu essential oil has resulted to be an effective inhibitor of plant pathogen fungi growth. Moreover, it results to be very effective against flu virus, with potential properties to be tested on H1N1. .