Preventing and Better Managing HIV/AIDS and TB with Traditional Health Practitioners - Building the Capacity of Community Health Workers in South Africa
South Africa is home to the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world. The 2010 UNAIDS report estimates there are 5.6 million South Africans living with HIV. Due to the severity of the epidemic, South Africa is one of the few countries in the world where child and maternal mortality has actually risen since the 1990s.
These staggering statistics prove the urgent need for prevention efforts. It is also clear that linking patients to service providers is critical to reducing the spread of the disease and mitigating its effects.
Like many African countries, South Africa lacks doctors, nurses, clinics and hospitals to cope with the HIV/AIDS crisis. In rural communities the closest clinics are often inadequate, understaffed and far away.
It is now recognized that 65 per cent of people living in rural South Africa see a Traditional Health Practitioner (THP) before a medical doctor. These communities often rely almost exclusively on THPs for their health care needs. THPs are very likely to encounter large numbers of patients who are infected with, affected by, or vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.
Outnumbering doctors in Africa 100 to 1, THPs represent a critical human resource pool to work with to improve access to appropriate health care – especially in rural South Africa.
AMREF’s Work
In 2005 AMREF successfully trained 80 THPs on voluntary testing and counseling to better manage HIV, home-based care, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV education and how to complete proper patient referrals to clinics. The program was hugely successful in improving health services and linking these very important front line caregivers to South Africa’s formal health system.
Building on this program AMREF will train more THPs to provide better quality front line health services.
Specifically AMREF will;
Train 800 THPs in a 40-day course
THPs will be educated on;
Directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS) for tuberculosis patients,
Voluntary counselling and testing including pre and post-test counseling,
Prevention of mother–to-child transmission of HIV
Proper patient referrals to clinics
AMREF’s work with THPs is based on a number of developments that recognize the importance of traditional healers and their link to the formal care system.
In 2004 the South African government passed The Traditional Health Practitioners Bill affirming the value of traditional medicine. The World Health Organization’s Global Program on HIV/AIDS has also placed an increasing emphasis on the need to involve traditional healers in HIV prevention and support.
Preventing and Better Managing HIV/AIDS and TB with Traditional Health Practitioners is part of AMREF’s 4-country Building the Capacity of Community Health Workers program. Learn more about this program in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
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