THE ROLE OF MEDICINAL PLANTS IN PRIMARY HEALTH CARE DELIVERY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDG): NATURAL PRODUCT CHEMIST’S VIEW

Abstract

There has been a concerted effort by governments of the world through summits to address global issues. A giant stride in global development has been witnessed through the 15 years of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which ended in 2015. That led to the adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which also addresses global issues including “Universal Health Coverage (UHC)”.  The need to attain stable health has been a global challenge since the ancient times. Plants have been in use for purposes such as food and herbal medicine. However, in recent times, science of synthetic chemistry and pharmaceutical science produced the allopathic drugs which were preferred to herbal drugs, but because of side effects, addiction and microbial resistance, natural product drugs have become more popular because drugs isolated from plants and scientifically moderated to improve their potency and safety have proved to be more reliable. In order to achieve the universal health coverage as advocated by the sustainable development goals, plants must be conserved and multiplied to create enough raw materials for the isolation, separation and preparation of natural product drugs. It is because of the quality and patronage of such drugs that care must be taken to address the degradation of natural habitats that renders some plant species to be endangered and subsequently extinct. Governments have globally been addressing the menace of human involvement in natural habitat degradation giving rise to increasing number of endangered plant species. Unfortunately, a total adherence to the established laws