Source: Edward C. Green in Indigenous Knowledge. Local Pathways to Global Development, 2004 World Bank Related Information IK Notes 82, July 2005: “Agriculture, trees and HIV/AIDS” In Sub-Saharan Africa HIV/AIDS has become a rural problem. Thus, agrobiodiversity and local knowledge are important factors for enhancing infected peoples’ livelihoods by contributing to food security, medicinal relief and income-generation. Expanding agrobiodiversity and local knowledge especially on tree species, can be one way to mitigate the effects of HIV.AIDS through enhancing rural livelihoods.
___________________________ IK Notes 51, December 2002: “Traditional Medicine in Tanga Today - The Ancient and Modern Worlds Meet” Traditional healers, modern physicians, and health workers have created the Tanga AIDS working group. The NGO builds on indigenous and modern medicinal knowledge to address HIV/AIDS. The local herbalists have developed affordable and effective treatments for opportunistic diseases of HIV/AIDS. TAWG is seeking international collaboration for the scientific validation of the medicinal plants.
___________________________ IK Notes 37, October 2001: HIV/AIDS: Traditional Healers, Community Self-assessment, and Empowerment” Traditional healers and indigenous knowledge can empower communities to deal with social consequences of HIV/AIDS, and contribute to allocating government resources to the most effective use. As an example, South African social mobilization efforts highlight the significance of community-based human rights approaches based on Paulo Freire’s education principles.
___________________________ IK Notes 30, March 2001: Indigenous Knowledge and HIV/AIDS: Ghana and Zambia A comparison of Ghana and Zambia identifies the responsibility of national governments in developing local language-based training approaches for traditional healers and community specific communication and education strategies to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis.
____________________________ IK Notes 26, November 2000: “Traditional Medicine and AIDS” In proposing an ‘African Solution’ for combating AIDS in Africa, this article out lines the need for integrating traditional medicine into broader efforts for HIV/AIDS prevention and discusses ways to improve stakeholder networking in Southern Africa . |
Indigenous Reponses to AIDS in Africa In Africa, local solutions to the spread of HIV/AIDS have been as or even more effective than those borrowed from external models. A tale of two countries: Uganda and Senegal Ugandan and Senegalese governments responded very quickly to AIDS. Uganda was able to drastically reduce the prevalence of HIV, while Senegal showed great success in preventing HIV from even entering the general (non high-risk) population. In both cases, these governments, later assisted by their NGOs, relied on indigenous knowledge to design programs. Uganda’s ABC program (Abstain, Be faithful, or use Condoms) focuses on the “proximate determinants” or immediate causes of HIV infection, as well as on what individuals can do to change or maintain behavior to avoid or reduce the risk of infection. But it also deals with the difficult social and institutional problems that only committed governments can address over the near to intermediate term. These programs were led by the government—especially the Ministry of Health—and involved many NGOs and community-based local organizations. Senegal , like Uganda, was one of the first African countries to acknowledge HIV/AIDS and to implement significant HIV/AIDS prevention and control programs. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (BUCEN), “Senegal has been a success story, as the government has managed to keep the epidemic from getting out of control” (BUCEN 2000:1). According to UNAIDS, Senegal has one of the lowest HIV seroprevalence rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it appears to be stable at under 1 percent or less of the general population (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2000). A UNAIDS assessment of Senegal’s response to its AIDS epidemic (Sittitrai 2001:9) shows the following: As in Uganda, politicians in Senegal were quick to move against the epidemic once the first cases appeared in the second half of the 1980s. Since 93 percent of Senegalese are Muslims, the government made efforts to involve religious leaders; HIV/ AIDS became a regular topic in Friday sermons in mosques, and senior religious figures talked about it on television and radio. Many other levels of Senegalese society joined in. By 1995, 200 NGOs were active in the response, as were women’s groups with about half a million members. HIV prevention was included in sex education in schools. Parallel efforts reached out to young people not in school (Sittitrai 2001:9). A person-to-person campaign: According to demographic and health surveys, Senegal and Uganda stand out among African countries in the high proportions of people surveyed who say they learned about AIDS from face-to-face, local contacts, as distinct from radio, print, or health workers. The two countries mobilized their religious leaders and their traditional healers at the beginning of their epidemics. THETA (Traditional Healers and Modern Practitioners Together against AIDS), a Ugandan NGO, promotes collaboration between traditional and modern health practitioners in the fight against AIDS. This NGO developed a model of collaborating in prevention and treatment of AIDS, drawing upon the many thousands of traditional healers in Uganda. Meanwhile, the Africa-wide, Senegal-based NGO PROMETRA is coordinating AIDS programs that involve indigenous African healers throughout the continent. A third of all Ugandan districts trained traditional healers, meaning that over 1,800 healers were trained every year for four years. This estimate is based on written records. Even allowing for the inflation of figures, this still amounts to a greater number of indigenous healers officially involved in HIV/AIDS prevention than perhaps any other country in Africa. Tanzania Tanga AIDS Working Group (TAWG) In Tanzania, the Tanga AIDS Working Group (TAWG) is an excellent example of a low-cost, sustainable program based on indigenous knowledge. “TAWG’s work is an outstanding example of how positive results can be achieved in the fight against AIDS by synergistically combining local expertise, indigenous knowledge, and modern health workers to provide effective low cost treatment for people living with AIDS.” (IK Notes 51) TAWG in Tanzania and THETA in Uganda are both community-based programs that provide herbal medicines for the treatment of the opportunistic infections of HIV/AIDS. In addition to anecdotal evidence, data from clinical trials show that at least some of these medicines are effective. For example, clinical trails have confirmed the efficacy of one of THETA’s locally available herbal medicines for Herpes Zoster and AIDS-related diarrhea (Homsy et al.,1999). Due to cost and access issues, an increasing numbers of Africans will rely primarily or exclusively on phytomedicines and indigenous therapies for AIDS infections. The pharmaceutical industry begun to recognize the value of the “ethnomedical” approach to bioprospecting for new, marketable drugs, and has started research on natural medicines already in use by traditional healers and/or entire indigenous populations. The World Bank, too, has recognized the economic development value of conserving medicinal plants in situ, and growing them commercially ex situ. A community approach Community-based programs can give hope to those infected by HIV/AIDS. Their message is that infected persons can live longer, more productive lives if certain steps of self-care are taken. Some community-based programs offer information and advice on improved nutrition, while others may deal with psychosocial and spiritual issues. Many encourage participation in support groups, and promote stress avoidance, good health, cessation of smoking and alcohol, and the development of positive attitudes. Even when antiretroviral drugs become widely available, there will still be a need for sustainable, community-based programs of care, support and treatment, which are based on natural products, indigenous therapies, local organizations, and flexible payment systems of health financing. And not least of all, they can help relieve the burden of social stigma and defeatism linked to the HIV/AIDS. Related Links  Integrating Local Knowledge into the Multi-Country AIDS Programs
Traditional Healers Treat AIDS Patients
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