Traditional Medicine in Mozambique
by Elizabeth Clarke
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Adapted from a proposal for a program in public health
and traditional health manpower in Mozambique, by
Edward C. Green (medical anthropologist), Taju Tomas
(Eng. Of Agronomy and pharmaceutical technician) and
Annemarie Jurg (biologist).
In 1991, a proposal was put forward for a three year
programme to establish a foundation for collaboration
between the National Health Service and the traditional
healers of Mozambique.
There were many reasons that this collaboration would
be beneficial, which pertain as much to South Africa
as they do to Mozambique.
1. There were not enough health workers within the
department to treat the entire Mozambican
population, especially in rural areas where health
services were scarce. However, there were
traditional healers in almost every community, to
whom the people had easy access.
2. Many people were dying from treatable and
preventable diseases, because health services
were not available to them. However, if traditional
healers were able to deal with these diseases, their
impact on the population would be drastically
reduced.
3. Traditional healers in Mozambique expressed a
wish to learn more about allopathic medicine and
thus to expand their healing skills.
The proposal suggested that traditional healers should
constitute a separate, parallel and self-regulating health
service that should collaborate with the Mozambique
government in the realisation of specific public health
goals. These would be initially to target childhood
diarrhoea and AIDS/STD’s, but would later include TB,
malaria, infant and maternal malnutrition, mental
health, child spacing and expanded programmes of
immunisation.
The goals of the programme were to
1. Achieve a working relationship in public health
between the National Health Service and traditional
healers in Mozambique
2. Reduce morbidity and mortality of priority diseases
3. Identify, reinforce and adopt aspects of traditional
medicine found to promote the health of the people
whilst discouraging those found to have a negative
health impact.
Objectives to meet these goals were:
1. To establish workshops to train traditional healers
in the treatment of certain priority diseases
2. To establish a research derived information base
about traditional beliefs and practices
3. To educate government health workers at all levels
in traditional beliefs and practices.
4. To coordinate research in traditional medicines,
although due to a tight budget, this research would
not be funded by the government itself.
How successful was the programme?
The programme was funded by the Swiss
Development Cooperation from 1994 to 1997. During
the first year an adequate number of traditional healers
were trained, but in the following year a new Minister
of Health was appointed, who initially gave a lower
priority to the position of traditional healers in health
than his predecessor. However, the Minister later
realised the public health importance of traditional
healers and collaborative programmes continue to take
place under the umbrella of the department of health.
In addition to these, there are a number of these
programmes on the go sponsored by nongovernmental
organisations, most of which collaborate
with local (either district or provincial) health authorities.
The successful implementation of such a programme
is a long term goal, and perhaps South Africa could
learn from the Mozambican experience, as well as from
other African countries which are in similar situations.
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