Embracing herbal medicine through collaboration among traditional healers, biomedical health practitioners and research institutes: a review

Abstract

There are nearly 200 000 traditional health practitioners practicing in South Africa catering for approximately 80 percent of the country’s population that is thought to use traditional medicine for their physical and spiritual wellbeing. The cumulative occurrence of diseases of unidentified etiology, customary beliefs and fatal diseases has led to traditional healer’s assisting more patients. In many countries, collaborative initiatives between traditional African medicine and western medicine are taking place at a national level. However, in South Africa traditional healers are not formally recognized as health care professionals. Traditional and allopathic health practitioners experience negative attitudes towards each other and very little effort has been executed to incorporate westernized medicine and traditional healing. The main problem is the way to instigate corporation between traditional healers and Western biomedicine which vary in theory of disease management and causation. The purpose of this paper was to assess and address problems adjourning incorporation of traditional and biomedical practitioners, while recognizing opportunities and contemporary initiatives or interventions. Recommendations were provided on how to facilitate collaboration of traditional healers into recognized health care system and research developments to reduce the risks of their practices.