Africa Boosts Traditional Cures

[Kala]

http://blackstarnews.com/?c=135&a=2342

September 4th, 2006

Africa Boosts Traditional Cures

Traditional medicine has more followers than Western
medicine in Zimbabwe and Africa and increasingly in
North America and Europe there is a booming market for
indigenous African medicines with powerful western
pharmaceutical giants tapping into this vast
traditional medicine body.
By Sifelani Tsiko

Zimbabwe has great potential to create livelihoods
through the sustainable use of biological resources
and indigenous knowledge systems that can
significantly contribute to national development.

Last week, the country joined the rest of the
continent in commemorating the fourth African
Traditional Medicine Day. The celebrations are held
every year on August 31. Zimbabwe and Africa are
increasingly becoming aware that their own biological
resources are vital assets that can spur national
development if their exploitation is done in a
sustainable manner and through the tapping of
indigenous knowledge systems.

But most development experts noted with concern the
continuing marginalization of traditional medicine
practice and indigenous knowledge systems, indigenous
foods with high nutritional, medicinal and economic
value, despite the signing of a string of
international protocols on biological resources and
traditional knowledge systems. The lure of western
conventional medicines and other approaches is still
too strong and experts say African countries must work
continually to raise the profile of traditional
medicines and other indigenous knowledge practices so
that these well adapted systems do not die or become
extinct.

Traditional medicine has more followers than Western
medicine in Zimbabwe and Africa and increasingly in
North America and Europe there is a booming market for
indigenous African medicines with powerful western
pharmaceutical giants tapping into this vast
traditional medicine body. World Health Organization
experts say the practice of traditional medicine
represents a major alternative approach in finding a
solution to the diseases that affect many people
across the continent.

It is encouraging that a number of countries on the
continent are working flat out to examine and expand
ways of incorporating the services of healers with
bio-medicine in an attempt to deliver care to the
majority of the people who have limited access to
modern health care. "A significant proportion of
people depend on traditional medicine," says Andrew
Mushita, the director of Community Technology
Development Trust. "The challenge is that how do we
systematically integrate traditional medicine with the
formal health care system.”
Since time immemorial, he says, people in Zimbabwe and
Africa have used traditional medicines and traditional
knowledge for their survival. "The challenge is how to
re-package this and promote it for easy accessibility
by the majority of people," says Mushita whose
organization has documented indigenous foods, medicine
and knowledge systems in the country.

He says there is need to strengthen the existing
institutional structures of traditional medicine and
research as well as promoting the use of registers and
databases to document and protect traditional
knowledge systems. There is a vast world of untapped
traditional medicine and knowledge system that if well
managed and protected can make a difference in the
lives of people in Zimbabwe and Africa.
For years, herbs from trees and shrubs, roots, leaves,
flowers and bark have been used to cure a whole range
of ailments through the linkage of spirituality and
other traditional African religion practices. At least
75 percent of all Western medicines and traditional
medicines are plant based while 25 percent use
synthetic materials.

Local knowledge has been used extensively for
medicinal plants for human and animal health care,
selection and breeding of livestock to suit the local
environment and the development and preservation of
local seed varieties. Traditional methods of storing
grain included the use of eucalyptus leaves, ash and
herbs such as Zumbani and this has limited side
effects as compared to the use of expensive chemicals
in the preservation of grain these days. Local
agricultural engineers are exploring ways of tapping
into indigenous knowledge systems to come up with
improved approaches for grain storage that are less
harmful to humans.

In Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the region, the baobab
tree has served many purposes including the
application of its leaves as a soothing cream and bark
for the treatment of malaria and other diseases. This
has been used for many centuries by African
communities in the treatment of diseases. Hoodia, an
appetite suppressant found in the entire southern
African region was developed using traditional
knowledge of the San people and other communities
strewn across the region.

In Kumasi, Ghana, a plant known as the "climbing
dayflower" and African tulip tree used for centuries
by the Asante people has proven useful in wound
healing due to antioxidant and antimicrobial actions,
according to a recent study published in the August
issue of Phytotherapy Research (2006). Researchers
from Kwame University of Science and Technology tested
methanol extracts of Commelina diffusa (dayflower) and
Spathodea campanulata bark, findings both showed
selective antifungal activity against Trichophyton
species--which commonly causes hair, skin and nail
infections. The scientists concluded that the use of
these plants in wound healing was proving to be
effective showing that with more investment in
research into traditional medicine and indigenous
knowledge systems, African countries can find some
solutions into some of their pressing problems.

"There is a need to establish a centre for traditional
medicine research and development to make meaningful
use of these genetic resources," says Mushita. "The
country has to have a budget to promote these
medicines. There is enormous comparative advantage in
Africa where there is a vast base of biological
resources. "There are a lot of economic benefits that
can be derived in terms of exports in drugs. There is
a whole range of indigenous knowledge systems in
agriculture, traditional medicine and water management
that can be researched on to improve the living
standards of the people in Africa."

He says there is need to revisit these knowledge
systems and do some kind of empirical research and to
re-package this technology for wider distribution on
the continent for development purposes. "These are
cost effective and locally adaptable," he says.
Worldwide there is a growing demand for sex
enhancement drugs which Indian and Chinese producers
are cashing in on as well as Western pharmaceuticals
that are producing drugs such as Viagra. There is a
big scope for enhancing herbs in Zimbabwe and Africa
to penetrate this multi-billion dollar industry if
more efforts are made to research on this traditional
knowledge, to repackage and brand the products using
competitive techniques as well as employing sound
legislation which recognizes and protects the rights
of communities to share the benefits of these
resources. The laws must also be adopted and
implemented to protect indigenous knowledge systems
and practices to curb biopiracy by multinationals and
other individuals from rich and powerful countries.

The World Trade Organization’s Treaty on Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) requires all countries to
protect their own genetic resources either by patents
or sui generis legislation or a combination of both.
But governments in developing countries have weak
structures and lack resources to protect their genetic
wealth and hence are open to exploitation by giant
pharmaceutical companies from rich countries.

Numerous cases have been reported of some
multinationals that are stealing genetic material from
unprotected developing countries and patenting the
resultant product as their own. Experts say developing
countries need to enact legislation that incorporates
the framework of current agreements and negotiations
–TRIPS along with the requirements of the Convention
on Biological Diversity and the International Treaty
for the Protection of Plant Genetic Resources to
safeguard their resources.

They say because international law permits the
exploitation and patenting of the earth's unprotected
biological resources, countries without laws governing
access and use to these resources will continue to be
bled of their genetic heritage as these will no longer
belong to them once there are stolen. Herbs whose
medicinal properties were kept secret in traditional
African communities as well as other indigenous
knowledge are increasingly being poached by outsiders
without regard for local communities who have for ages
been the custodians of that knowledge.

"In the past we willingly told outsiders about our
medicines, but fortunately we never divulged the full
contents of the various herbal medicines that we
dispense to our patients," Zvomuya Gwindi, a
traditional healer was quoted in a community
technology journal.
"Africa is a continent very well endowed with
medicinal plants and its very easy for a researcher to
sneak in and get names of all the trees used in an
HIV/Aids cocktail and source the plants from elsewhere
on the continent and take the herbs to their
laboratories without us getting anything," he says.

The Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association
(Zinatha) has a membership of about 55 000 traditional
healers who have access to more than 500 different
types of medicinal plants. In South Africa, it is
estimated that there are 300 000 traditional
practitioners in the industry which has an annual
turnover of more than 250 million Rands. In Africa,
south of the Sahara, the ratio of traditional healers
to the population is about 1:500 in contrast to the
doctor to population ratio of 1:40, 000 on average.
Raising awareness on the existing rules and
regulations governing the practice of traditional
medicine and the protection of biological resources
will help to revolutionize traditional medical systems
and the use of local knowledge.

Addressing the problems of deforestation, veldfires,
pollution of water resources, the extraction of
minerals, overgrazing, over-exploitation of plant
resources without planting new ones, non-documentation
of indigenous knowledge systems and poor investment in
research can help the country's development process.
The joining of traditional and modern medical
practice, the lack of recognition and respect for
traditional medical practitioners, access and
protection traditional medicine plants, strengthening
legislation and monitoring of genetic resources still
remain a major challenge too.

"If people burn trees and other plants
indiscriminately, they are also burning the practice
of traditional medicine," says one traditional healer.
Prof. Claude Mararike says there is need to promote
traditional medicine and collaboration within the
region as well as other countries such as China and
India. African medicine and traditional systems have
survived negative Eurocentric stereotypes that sought
to put Western medical systems above them. And,
promoting research, the sustainable use and protection
of genetic resources as well as traditional medicine
and indigenous knowledge systems will no doubt add the
African body of knowledge to the world repertory of
inventions and discoveries.


Tsiko is The Black Star News’ Southern Africa
Correspondent based in Harare, Zimbabwe.