Indigenous medicine a sticky issue for SA health sector, says Phaahla

South Africa lags behind China and India for incorporating indigenous or traditional medical practice and medicine into the health system.

This is according to health minister Dr Joe Phaahla, who attended the two-day World Health Organisation’s first Traditional Medicine Global Summit of G20 health ministers in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India a week ago.

Phaahla said though South Africa has the Traditional Health Practitioners Act passed by parliament more than a decade ago, the country still lags behind countries such as China and India, which have already conducted efficacy tests on their indigenous medicine.

He said one of the sticking points included agreeing on the norms and standards in terms of who would qualify to be a traditional health practitioner.

“Our difficulty in SA is [agreeing] what is the practice, which is traditional. As you know in the African traditional systems there are different practices; there are diviners called sangomas,” Phaahla said.

Phaahla said China and India had “zeroed in on the herbal side, their natural herbs, what they have learnt from their ancestors in terms of which herbs work for this or that”.

“Their herbs are tested to make sure they are not toxic, how much of it you must use, so there’s some standard. That’s where we are still lacking.”

South Africa’s Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2007 was passed to establish the interim traditional health practitioners council of South Africa to provide for the registration, training and practices of traditional health practitioners and protect the interests the public who use traditional health practitioners.

He said a February summit in South Africa attended by associations representing various traditional and indigenous practitioners who grappled with the issue which he said was still a “sticky one”.

“One of the key issues was faith issues as they were not included in the definition of our act, some wanted faith healers to be also included and there’s also traditional surgeons. So those issues we still have to sort out, but otherwise we would like traditional health practices to be properly registered.”

He said South African traditional practitioners were yet to reach an agreement.

“In India when they talk about traditional medicine, it’s largely what we call herbalists,” Phaahla said.

Regarding the incorporation of traditional medicines, the meeting, which featured all G20 health ministers, resolved and acknowledged the importance of traditional medicine, provided they are “rigorously and scientifically validated to be safe and effective” as per the World Health Organisation’s traditional medicine strategy.