Working With Traditional Healers to Better Manage HIV/AIDS, TB and STIs
HIV/AIDS prevalence in South Africa is estimated to be the world’s highest. As the country’s leading cause of mortality and morbidity, HIV/AIDS could soon account for 60-70 % of medical expenditure in South African hospitals. These staggering statistics signal the urgent need to pursue new and diverse ways of confronting the pandemic.
Like many African countries, South Africa lacks enough doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals to cope with the demand for services to care for HIV and AIDS patients. Most often the nearest clinic is inadequate, understaffed and a great distance away from the community itself. As a result, 60% of people living in South Africa consult a traditional health practitioner (THP) before seeking the services of a doctor. In rural areas that number climbs to 80%.
Outnumbering doctors in Africa 100 to 1, THP are likely to encounter many patients living with HIV or AIDS and represent a trusted and accessible human resource pool in South African communities.
The significance and value of THP is recognized by the South African Ministry of Health, with which AMREF Canada and AMREF South Africa have collaborated closely in the planning of this bold and innovative project.
AMREF is:
Training Traditional Health Practitioners in voluntary testing and counselling (VCT), home-based care, prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) education, and how to complete proper patient referrals to clinics.
The 40-day course will also cover diseases that affect HIV and AIDS patients such as TB and STIs. Training will emphasize the specific needs of children, women of reproductive age and adolescents, as well as equip THPs with the skills and confidence to conduct community outreach on HIV/AIDS.
This AMREF project reinforces the growing international consensus that traditional health practitioners are a valuable resource to achieving better health. It also supports the inclusion of THP in National AIDS programmes and strategies, for which the World Health Organization (WHO) has been advocating since the early 1990s.
Major Project Funders:
MAC AIDS Fund
Learn more about AMREF's work preventing and controlling new infections of HIV and AMREF's programs in:
Ethiopia
Kenya
Southern Sudan
Tanzania
Uganda
