African Traditional Medicine Day: Time for collaboration between traditional and biomedical practitioners in Cameroon

The World Health Organisation holds that traditional medicine has a central role to play to deliver priority health strategies but that for this to be possible there must be a perfect synergy between conventional and biomedical practitioners

By Fai Fominyen Ngu Edward and George Esunge Fominyen

The nascent 21st century has seen poverty across the world. It has also witnessed the re-emergence of some diseases (e.g. tuberculosis) and the difficulty to find permanent solutions to health care challenges like malaria, river blindness and HIV/AIDS. By defining priority health care programmes in areas like HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and immunisation, Cameroon’s government seems determined to provide good health for its citizens. However, for such priority health programmes to be effective in such an under-developed and poor country, it is essential that there is adequate collaboration between traditional healers, biomedical practitioners and health authorities.
Traditional healers are more present in African and Cameroonian communities more than any other health care providers. The first people who often manage severe malaria cases in most villages where there are no biomedical doctors are healers; they are also the first to be consulted if a cough is not heeding to home treatment.

They often provide a cheaper alternative to health care that is often costly within the context of ambient poverty in the country.

Traditional medical practitioners have thus acquired the confidence and respect of their communities, especially in rural areas. As a result they are more than just health care providers. They have historically become reference points for traditional governance, participating in guidance activities and the resolution of disputes in their localities.

How healers and biomedical practitioners can deliver priority programmes

According to the World Health Organisation, traditional medicine has a central role to play in the 21st century to deliver priority health strategies. Partnerships between communities of traditional medicine, public health and health research have great potential, particularly in areas of prevention and management of diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and many chronic diseases.

If traditional healers are fully recognised as partners in the delivery of health care; public health officials could tap into their potential as confidants of most persons at risk of contracting and persons living with TB, Malaria or HIV/AIDS, to communicate key prevention and management messages. This could happen when authorities support the selection and training of healers as information, education and communication agents.
A good example is an initiative undertaken by the Christian Children’s fund in South Africa. Realising the importance of incorporating traditional healers into its HIV/AIDS awareness programme, a nurse/traditional healer of the CCF developed a training programme for traditional healers in South Africa that combined traditional healing methods with modern health practices. 14 local healers thus attended a five-day intensive HIV/AIDS training session sponsored by the CCF. Using a variety of techniques including lectures, role playing, song and dance to convey the skills and knowledge needed within the traditional healer framework. Topics ranged from the basics HIV/AIDS, symptoms, diagnosis and sterilisation of instruments, to the psychological impact of HIV/AIDS, counselling at risk populations and confidentiality.
At PROMETRA Cameroon, when we carried out such training in Limbe in 2005 and 2006, doctors from the Limbe Provincial hospital were present and supported the initiative. Such collaborative work would prevent healers from spreading inaccurate information and rather pre-dispose them to become potential relays for any massive anti-HIV campaign. If such a process could be integrated in the methods of the National HIV/AIDS Control Committee or the Anti-Malaria Committee it seems more likely that the efforts of these bodies would be more effective on the ground.