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Traditional healers for HIV/AIDS battle
2005-07-10 11:01:03
By Rayner Ngonji , DITF
The Dar es Salaam based Institute of Traditional Medicine has devised a system of incorporating traditional healers in the battle against HIV/AIDS.
The new approach according to Dr Edmund Kayombo is being carried out under a special programme designed to establish the potential of some of the herbs used by the traditional healers and exploit them fully.
’’Whether we like it or not we have to accept that some herbs respond positively to some of the diseases associated with HIV/AIDS, and these need to be worked on to understand their functioning,’’ Dr Kayombo emphasized in an interview at his pavilion at the International Trade Fair, Mwalimu Nyerere Grounds along Kilwa Road.
They might not cure the disease outright but do treat well the diseases that emanate from the infection, he elaborated.
He said under the programme which is being implemented on pilot basis covering Dar es Salaam and Arusha regions, potential herbalists are supposed to enter into contract with the institution before submitting the herbs for research.
The first contract is Memorandum of Understanding while the second contract called ‘Disclosure’ is a commitment by the herbalist to cooperate with the institute by disclosing his herbs used for treatment.
The whole exercise, Dr Kayombo said, aims at committing the healers to process and make them cooperate smoothly to the new strategy which has been designed specifically to avoid complaints from the herbalists that they had been robbed or conned their skill.
’’What we normally do is that we take the samples, dispense them to the patients and those that respond positively are taken to another stage for further assessment before they are included into the line of treatment drugs,’’ Dr Kayombo explained.
A total of 25 herbalists, 11 from Dar es Salaam and seven from Arusha, are currently working with the institute out of 31 who previously showed interest in participating in the exercise. Some have been chopped off following poor performance of their herbs.
For a considerable time incorporating traditional healers’ herbs into the laboratory treatment discipline seemed to be a complicated issue with both sides putting conditions that could not be observed by either side.
However, with the new strategy a major breakthrough could be recorded in the whole question of health care as the majority of the rural populace, in the wake of poor allocation of health services rely on the herbs.
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