Covid-19 infections across Africa are on the rise. Although the confirmed number of infected people on the continent is still about 5 per cent of the global total, and the rate of increase seems to be slowing, hopes that Africa would escape the pandemic relatively unscathed are fading.
In many countries, especially those south of the Sahara, already
creaking public health systems will struggle to cope with an influx of
critically ill patients needing intensive care. This
region hosts just 3 per cent of the world’s
conventionally trained medics, who face one-quarter of the global disease
burden armed with just 1 per cent of its financial resources for healthcare.
Even so, the continent does have resources that can help it
cope. Not only has it had extensive experience battling epidemics of infectious
disease, such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and the Aids and cholera pandemics,
it also has a wealth of traditional medical expertise that it has barely begun
to exploit.
Talk of indigenous medicine is often greeted with condescending
colonial stereotypes of witch-doctors peddling snake oil. This is not helped by
the ridicule inspired by leaders like former Gambian strongman, Yahya Jammeh, who claimed
to be able to cure Aids using massages and a herbal concoction, or by the
attempts by the regime in Madagascar to market an unproven and similarly ineffective
cure for Covid-19. Back in 1969, Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, condemned
traditional healers as “lazy cheats who want to live on the sweat of others”.
Yet while quacks and fraudsters doubtless exist, there is
compelling evidence that the majority of practitioners are skilled and
experienced, and that their herbal prescriptions can be effective. As one
recent study notes, scientific research “continues to validate therapeutic claims
on medicinal plants made by traditional practitioners”. The Kenya Medical
Research Institute also rejects the notion that they are inferior to
conventional remedies.
Recognising this, the World Health Organization and the Africa
Centre for Disease Control are
collaborating in the use of traditional medicine as a basis for
potential remedies for Covid-19. Indigenous medicine can also help offset
manpower shortages where there are very few conventionally trained healthcare
workers. Across Africa, there is one
doctor for every 40,000, but one traditional healer for every 500.
By integrating their expertise and knowledge into the existing
national health system, with appropriate safeguards, countries can bolster the
deficit in medical personnel. This eases the burden on the public health
system, freeing up resources to be employed in dealing with emergencies like
Covid-19.
Three years ago, Kenya’s parliament adopted a new health law requiring the
government to do just this. To date the law remains unimplemented. Apart from
depriving the country of a valuable asset in the war against Covid-19, the lack
of official recognition leads to continued stigmatisation of traditional
medicine and makes it difficult for the public to distinguish between
fraudsters and genuine practitioners. It starves the sector of the investment
needed to translate indigenous knowledge into cheap, standardised and
accessible medical services and products.
The problem exists across the continent. While most countries
had by 2018 developed national or state level laws and regulations to govern
traditional medicine, only
three African states, Benin, Ghana
and Mali, reported
having an existing national plan for integrating it
into their national health services. Such plans should be an urgent priority.
To tackle Covid-19 effectively, and ensure that it is able to
provide affordable and sustainable medical services in the long term, Africa
will need to mobilise all its resources. It would be a tragedy if, in this
fight, the continent failed to use its most effective weapon: its people and
their knowledge.
