Sometime around mid-June 2021, Covidex herbal medicine maker Prof Patrick Engeu Ogwang was worried his Covid19 treatment formula would put him in trouble, not only with medicines regulator National Drug Authority (NDA) but also the mafia keen on taking his life and minting billions from his wonder drug.
With Covidex offering relief to some Covid19 patients, some Prof Ogwang’s relatives and friends, the pharmacy lecturer and his Jenah Herbals U Ltd took the risk of production before its approval by NDA.
Covidex hit the market.
NDA summoned Prof Ogwang for questioning.
“So, I called a friend, saying, ‘On Monday, Covidex will be no more. NDA is going to close us,” Ogwang told Capital FM’s Desert Island Discs at the weekend.
“I was crying. An old man like me crying tears!”
It is not clear whether one of the professor’s well connected friends had connected him to the president, but State House had a message for the Covidex maker.
“We are from the switchboard of the president; Mzee wants to talk to you,” narrated Ogwang.
“I said, God, you are good!”
His first time to speak to the president, the academic and innovator describes Museveni as “a very intelligent man” who “asked me so many questions.”
Ogwang says his conversation with the president dried his tears.
“When the president called me, I stopped crying.”
Typical of Museveni’s interrogations, Ogwang had to answer introductory questions about his background.
Then began the questioning on Covidex and its efficacy in treating Covid19.
“He asked me, ‘are you Dr Ogwang?’ And I said yes. Where are you from… all those things. Then he was like, ‘I am told you say you make medicine for Covid?’ Then I am like, ‘Yes, Mr President,” revealed Ogwang.
“How do you know that it works?” I gave him the history: how we used this plant when we were young, for treating measles and coughs. I told him how I was using it when I was young, how I have been studying it for 17 years in the lab, its safety, how we can use it for malaria and other diseases, and how I had made the formula for some disease,” he narrated.
“I said, ‘Last year when Covid came and some friends fell sick, I gave them and they recovered. This year in May, a friend called me and said his friend was badly off, I gave him and he had recovered. Even three or four days ago, my cousin and his wife who were down totally, they also recovered.’ He said, ‘OK, give me their numbers.’ I gave him the numbers, and he called them himself, to establish the truth.”
That was the end of day one of the conversation between the president and the professor.
“He said, ‘I will call you tomorrow at 10 o’clock;’ at 10 o’clock, he called,” went on Ogwang.
“He asked me more questions; the science of the medicine, how does it work, what are the plants in it.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT, PROFESSOR?
It was time for the professor to ask the president what aid he needed for the Covidex project.
He suggested his life and factory week in danger.
Ogwang also asked Museveni to rescue him from NDA, and offer him resources to increase production.
“Mr President, I want security, especially for the factory and my family,” Ogwang told Museveni.
“I told him I was fearing NDA. And then, I want capacity, to be expanding. We want to expand production because this thing is working, it is helping people but the factory is small.
“He said, ‘I am going to link you to [Deputy IGP] Gen Lokech for the security and [State house comptroller] Madam [Lucy] Nakyobe to handle your finances. See you tomorrow! Bye bye!”
The calls didn’t stop.
“He kept on calling me every day; he would call me to follow up the matter.”
(See related reporting here: TROUBLE AHEAD! Covidex drug maker Prof Ogwang faces three roadblocks)
