The Food and Drugs Authority has cautioned the public against using Omama Herbal Mixture after laboratory tests revealed the anti-malaria product’s been adulterated with harmful chemical substances that could pose serious health risks.
The FDA said its laboratory tests, conducted in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service, revealed that the product had been adulterated with Diazepam, Metronidazole, Paracetamol, and Niacinamide, all of which are prescription-only allopathic medicines. The discovery marks a dangerous breach of regulatory standards for herbal medicinal products in Ghana’s increasingly crowded alternative medicine market.
“The Omama Herbal Mixture is registered as a herbal medicinal product for the treatment of malaria and loss of appetite. It is not expected to contain any allopathic medicines,” the Authority clarified in a statement signed by its Acting Chief Executive, emphasizing the severity of the adulteration.
The warning carries particular weight given Omama’s popularity among Ghana’s youth. Earlier reports from April 2025 described Omama Herbal Mixture as having become an addictive craze among Greater Accra youth, with users praising its ability to intoxicate without the smell of alcohol. What consumers might not have realized is that their preferred drink contained prescription medications that could cause serious harm when taken without medical supervision.
Diazepam, one of the adulterants found in the mixture, belongs to the benzodiazepine family and is used to treat anxiety, seizures, and muscle spasms. It’s highly addictive and can cause respiratory depression, especially when combined with other substances. Metronidazole is an antibiotic used to treat bacterial and parasitic infections, while Paracetamol is a common pain reliever that can cause liver damage when taken in excessive amounts or without proper medical guidance.
The FDA warned that consuming such substances without medical supervision could pose serious health risks, particularly given that users might not be aware they’re ingesting prescription medications alongside herbal ingredients. The combination of these drugs with alcohol, which some users reportedly consume alongside Omama products, could prove especially dangerous.
The Authority announced plans to work with Omama Herbal Group Limited to recall all affected products from the market for safe disposal, signaling an attempt at cooperative enforcement rather than immediately punitive action. However, it also warned that criminal proceedings would be initiated where necessary, leaving open the possibility of prosecution depending on investigation findings.
“The Authority will not relent in its efforts to ensure that only safe, quality, and effective products are available to consumers,” the FDA stated, reaffirming its commitment to safeguarding public health amid growing concerns about herbal product adulteration in Ghana.
The public’s been urged to report any persons, pharmacies, or over-the-counter medicine sellers offering Omama Herbal Mixture for sale to the nearest FDA office. This crowd-sourced enforcement approach recognizes the FDA’s limited capacity to monitor every retail outlet across Ghana’s vast territory, particularly in remote areas where regulatory oversight remains challenging.
The case highlights broader concerns about Ghana’s herbal medicine industry, which has experienced rapid growth in recent years as consumers seek alternatives to conventional treatments. While many herbal products provide genuine health benefits, the sector’s expansion has attracted opportunistic manufacturers who adulterate products with pharmaceutical ingredients to enhance perceived effectiveness, often without regard for consumer safety.
Investigations earlier in 2025 revealed that unlike traditional herbal medicines, Omama products weren’t limited to herbal shops but were openly sold alongside alcoholic beverages at bars and local joints across cities. In areas like Pokuase, the herbal mixture was prominently displayed on shelves with alcoholic drinks despite its packaging as a medicinal product, blurring the lines between medicine, recreational substance, and beverage.
This marketing strategy, combined with the product’s intoxicating effects, created a perfect storm for widespread use among youth seeking affordable highs. Users reported that when Omama first launched, a bottle cost GHS20, but as demand and addiction grew, prices soared to GHS50 per bottle. The price increase itself should have signaled something unusual about the product’s appeal beyond its supposed antimalarial properties.
The FDA’s warning follows a broader market surveillance exercise that in October suspended operations of nine sachet water producers in the Western North Region for operating with expired registration licenses. According to Albert Ankamah, Western North Regional Director of the FDA, the enforcement exercise aimed to ensure that water producers and other manufacturers comply with good manufacturing, hygienic, and storage practices to protect consumer health.
These enforcement actions demonstrate the FDA’s renewed commitment to market surveillance and regulatory compliance, but they also expose the scale of the challenge. With limited resources and thousands of registered products across multiple categories, the Authority relies heavily on post-market surveillance, reactive enforcement, and public cooperation to identify problematic products.
Herbal medicine adulteration isn’t a new problem in Ghana. A 2015 analysis warned that adulteration with pharmaceuticals could cause multiple organ failure, stroke, liver and kidney damage, among other serious complications. The practice typically occurs when manufacturers deliberately add synthetic drugs to enhance product efficacy and create repeat customers through addiction, all while marketing products as purely natural herbal remedies.
The regulatory framework for herbal medicines requires products to undergo testing by the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine before FDA approval, checking for safety, contamination, adulteration, and chemical composition. However, post-approval monitoring remains limited, creating opportunities for manufacturers to alter formulations after receiving initial registration.
For consumers, the Omama case serves as a stark reminder that “herbal” doesn’t automatically mean “safe” or “natural.” The FDA registration number on a product’s label, while important, only guarantees that the original formulation passed safety tests, not that the current batch matches what was approved. Market surveillance and consumer vigilance remain essential safeguards against adulterated products.
The involvement of the Ghana Police Service in testing Omama products suggests authorities may be investigating broader criminal activity beyond simple regulatory violations. Whether this leads to prosecutions remains to be seen, but the collaboration signals that adulteration of medicinal products is being treated as a serious offense warranting criminal investigation.
For Omama Herbal Group Limited, the recall represents a potential business catastrophe. The company, based in the Ashanti Region, had successfully penetrated the Greater Accra market and built substantial demand for its products. Whether the adulteration was intentional or resulted from contaminated raw materials or poor manufacturing practices will likely determine the severity of consequences facing company executives.
The broader herbal medicine industry should view this warning as a wake-up call. Ghana’s growing appetite for alternative medicine creates enormous opportunities, but also attracts bad actors willing to cut corners or deliberately deceive consumers. Industry associations and responsible manufacturers must work with regulators to establish higher standards and self-policing mechanisms that protect consumers while preserving market confidence in legitimate herbal products.
As the FDA works to remove Omama products from circulation, questions remain about how many people may have already suffered health consequences from consuming adulterated batches. The Authority hasn’t disclosed whether it’s received reports of adverse reactions, but given the product’s widespread popularity and the dangerous nature of the adulterants found, there’s legitimate concern about unreported health impacts.
For now, consumers are advised to dispose of any Omama Herbal Mixture in their possession and seek proper medical treatment for malaria through approved antimalarial medications. While herbal remedies can play a role in healthcare, substituting proven treatments with adulterated products puts lives at risk, particularly for a disease as serious as malaria.
