Other aspects

In 2006 the Phytomedicine Programme was evaluated by the National Research Foundation as one of the 29 developed research niche areas in South Africa with funding guaranteed to 2011.

We have been invited to join a consortium of 8 different countries in Europe in an application to the European Union Framework 7 programme on a project to replace antibiotic feed additives used in animal production with plant extracts.

The Phytomedicine Programme has presented a training course with funding from the UK Royal Society in association with Prof Peter Houghton for c. 25 students from South Africa on isolating and characterising biologically active compounds from plants in February 2008. 

The ICS-UNIDO invited the Phytomedicine Programme to organize a training workshop on Training Course on½Bio-evaluation of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants for Human and Animal Health½ for c. 25 scientists from all over Africa from 23-27 June 2008.

A symposium on ethnoveterinary medicine was organized during the meeting of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology in Sao Paolo in 2008.

In 2009 a symposium for scientists from different southern Africa countries was organized on “Success stories in commercializing plants from southern Africa”.  This symposium was funded by ICART SADC.  A book entitled Green Gold was also published with funding from ICART SADC.