The ratio of Medical Doctors to population in Tanzania is 1:20,000, while traditional healers are estimated at 1:350. Yet no effective care or vaccine against HIV infection to 2.2 million Tanzanians who are HIV positive, only 400,000 are planned to access ARV.

Traditional medicines are the most widely established and available health care system in Tanzania and it has been the effective low cost remedies to treat opportunistic infection associated with HIV/AIDS.

Many public health experts involved in this ongoing debate have concluded that, despite the limitations, it makes sense to at least attempt collaboration, given the vast health needs in Tanzania and the numerous realistic and practical advantages.

Indigenous Knowledge and plant remedies are efficacious and safe in treatment of Opportunistic Infection in HIV/AIDS patients. If well explored, documented and researched they can be widely used to improve health care of our communities

The Project Manager of Tanga AIDS Working Group (TAWG) Dr Mtullu says that the existing health services are unaffordable by the poor, thus Traditional Healers (THs) offer opportunity for reaching the poor at a little added cost.

TAWG has so far treated 4,500 AIDS patients with Opportunistic Infection with herbal medicines. Currently it has 1,300 patients from six treatment centers and also they build the capacity of Traditional Healers to assess the patients’ progress.

According to Dr. Mtullu, TAWG aims to provide effective low cost herbal remedies to treat opportunistic infection associated with HIV/AIDS, conduct research on promising herbs and to ensure sustainable supply of medicinal plants in use through conservation and cultivation of the herbal medicinal plants.

Making scientific use of traditional Healers will reduce the patients load to hospital as well as reduce the cost of patients treatment. It will help the Government in respective Districts to in reducing resources spent on Care and keep more people alive hence maintaining the workforce and reducing the newly orphaned children.

TAWG also raises awareness among THs’ to safe guard both THs and their clients from being infected during their practices and also it builds capacity of healers in providing community education and care.

Traditional healers in HIV/AIDS often outnumber doctors by 100 to 1 or more in Tanzania. They provide a large accessible, available and affordable trained human resource pool.

The dialogue participants at Tanzania Global Development Learning Center argue that THs provide client-centred, personalized health care that is culturally appropriate, holistic, and tailored to meet the needs and expectations of the patient. Traditional Healers are culturally close to the clients, which facilitates communication about disease and related social issues. This is especially important in the case of STDs.

Research has shown that Traditional Healers abstain from dangerous practices when educated about the risk, which is only possible through the dialogue and cooperation.

Often THs are generally respected health care providers and opinion leaders in their communities, and thus are treating large number of people living with HIV/AIDS. Healers have greater credibility than village health workers especially with respect to social and spiritual matters.

Numerous case studies presented at TGDLC show that THs enthusiasm for collaborating with biomedical health providers and show that their activities are sustainable as they generate their own source of income.

According to researchers, herbs help in management of AIDS cases due to its historical ability to, increase appetite, gain weight, stops diarrhoea, reduce fever, clear up oral thrush, and resolve skin rash and fungus and treats herpes zoster.

“Patients begin to improve between 1-4 weeks and the survival rate is 2-5 years some patient have 12 years now,” says Dr, Mtullu.

Among the challenges that Traditional Healers face are increasing number of clients seeking services from TAWG leading to strain on available resources, failure to cope with increasing appetite, lack of cooperation between the traditional health system and modern health system, bulkiness of the herbs – stigma and environmental distribution.

According to the Director of Tanzania Global Development and Learning Centre (TGDLC), a Knowledge sharing Dialogue was across different professionals to address HIV/AIDS challenges through unique perspective of using Indigenous Knowledge (IK).

“The goal is to help professionals, practitioners and researchers incorporate IK into their strategies programs/policies in the fight of HIV/AIDS and promote South-South dialogue among IK practitioners,” says Senkondo.


Nyasigo Kornel is a Communication Officer of Health and Poverty Resource Centre (HPRC) at Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre (HIRDC) and formely a journalist with The Guardian newspaper.

Posted By: Nyasigo Kornel