Indigenous Knowledge Systems Research Unit

DST Technical Task Team: UKZN Traditional Medicines Digital Pharmacopoeia

MRC IKS Unit Director to serve on the DST Technical Task Team to Develop a Traditional Medicines Pharmacopoeia for University of KwaZulu- Natal (UKZN)

The IKS Director, Dr Motlalepula Gilbert Matsabisa and Ms Mirranda Javu, a senior researcher at IKS, were both asked to serve on the technical task team of DST to work with and assist UKZN to develop a digital Pharmacopoeia.

The DST, through the National IKS Office, has recently contracted the University of KwaZulu-Natal to compile an Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) digital Pharmacopoeia on behalf of the Department.  For the work to commence, DST needed to establish a technical task team to provide insight and advice the University of KwaZulu-Natal on the development of the IKS Traditional Medicines digital Pharmacopoeia. The Technical Team is composed of only 6 members, 2 of which come from the MRC IKS Unit.

Some of the core functions of the task team include, but are not limited to:

• recommending  and compiling a list of published pharmacopoeia to be digitised;
• Ensuring that the digitised data is authentic, verifiable and of the highest scientific standards
• recommending the standards/metadata for digitising research monographs identified through the recommendation list, including the IKS database review conducted in 2008; and
• ensuring that the quality of the digital pharmacopoeia meets the access standards that will be set by the technical task team with oversight by the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Health.

This is the third technical task team in this year alone, that Dr Matsabisa and the MRC IKS Unit have been requested to serve on. The first was on the DOH Ministerial Task Team and also the DOH Traditional Medicines Task Team.

The terms of reference for the DOH Traditional Medicines Task Team included:

• The harmonisation of policies relating to traditional medicines across government departments
• The creation of a committee that would support the development of a regulatory system within the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority and
• To review the performance of the Directorate: Traditional Medicines in the National Department of Health