Integrated Regional Information Networks - November 6, 2006

LUSAKA, 6 Nov 2006 (IRIN) - Rising demand for the services of traditional healers is drawing Tanzanian Masai practitioners across the border to fill the void left by the creaking Zambian public health system, but their discounted prices are upsetting their local counterparts.

Daniel Nakaraga, one among thousands of Masai traditional healers and herbalists believed to be practicing in Zambia, is easily identified by his colourful attire as he consults and dispenses remedies from a small shoulder bag on the streets of the capital, Lusaka.

"Many people didn't know about my medicines when I first came to Zambia in June this year, but they are now appreciating it and my sales are improving every day," Nakaraga told IRIN.

Zambia's inadequate public health system and the relative wealth in the economic heartland of Copperbelt Province and Lusaka have lured the Masai, but their remedies, known by the Swahili word Dawa, are substantially undercutting prices offered by the local healers. Nakaraga's charges range from US$5 to $20, while the average Zambian healer charges in kind by demanding goods like goats and cattle, valued at about US$300 in monetary terms.

The 2006 World Health Organisation (WHO) report, Working Together For Health, cited the shortage of trained health professionals as one of the main problems in low-income countries struggling with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Zambia has about 600 registered doctors left in the public and private health sectors, as health professionals, including nurses and doctors, have joined an exodus to South Africa, Europe and the United States in search of better working conditions and salaries.

About 1.6 million of Zambia's roughly 10 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, but only 60,000 have access to antiretroviral (ARV) medication.

The Masai traditional healers sell their herbal remedies mostly on the streets and in open markets, and claim to cure a variety of ailments from diabetes, kidney failure, strokes, diarrhoea, headaches and malaria to more superstitious problems like breaking a cycle of bad luck and bringing back runaway spouses, although not HIV/AIDS. They also provide aphrodisiacs for treating impotence, referred to as gunpowder, and herbs that apparently reverse barrenness in women.

"My grandmother had a terrible stroke a few weeks ago. We took her to the hospital but the condition was not improving until I bought something from these Masais and she is now getting better. I think their herbs are effective," said Lusaka resident Betty Mwansa.

Although their services appear to enjoy growing popularity among clients, the foreign herbalists are coming under increasing criticism from local traditional healers, who believe the Tanzanians are taking away their business and lowering standards.

"We are very much concerned at the increasing numbers of Masai traditional health practitioners in both Lusaka and Copperbelt," said Rodwell Vongo, president of the Traditional Health Practitioners Association of Zambia (THPAZ), which has a membership of 40,000 herbalists, diviners, spiritualists and traditional birth attendants. "We have our own way of ensuring our members observe certain minimum standards for the safety of the medicine to be administered on the people, but we can't tell how safe the Dawa is because it has not been subjected to us for scrutiny."

Zambia has been fostering closer ties between traditional healers - who are often trusted members of their communities -and western-trained doctors to tackle HIV/AIDS. It is currently conducting clinical trials of various herbs, touted as raising the CD4 count, which measures the strength of the immune system, or reducing the viral load, which measures the amount of HI virus in the bloodstream, or treating a number of opportunistic infections like skin ailments and tuberculosis.

Analysts say the Masai's business is thriving because Zambia lacks a coherent policy for regulating herbal medicines, despite the health ministry's recognition of THPAZ and the key role of traditional healers in the health sector.

Ministry of Health spokesperson Canisius Banda told IRIN: "We acknowledge that traditional medicine is a very important field and we are currently working on regulating its usage. At the moment we don't have a policy guide, not even the legal framework to regulate its usage in Zambia, but we shall be taking a policy to parliament soon."

Much to the chagrin of their Zambian colleagues, Masai traditional healers have every right to practice during the window period before a legal framework is adopted.

"We come here legally. Our immigration permits are valid and they allow us to do business in Zambia for a month or more. When the permits expire, we go back to Tanzania to renew them and return to Zambia with more medicines," Nakaraga said. "We like coming to Zambia because our medicine is in high demand here, people are always buying."

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