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WHAT IS THE AFRICAN TRADITIONAL HERBAL RESEARCH CENTRE/CLINIC?

Introduction

In all ancient cultures around the world, there exists traditional indigenous knowledge related to the health of humans and animals. Presently, eighty percent of the world’s populations still depend upon traditional and indigenous knowledge in medicine and herbal practices.  In Uganda, traditional healers and herbal plant remedies play an important role in the health of millions of people.  Africa as a whole has a long and impressive list of medicinal plants based on local knowledge. Based upon holistic principles, this science pre-dates Egyptian medical science and is between 20,000 and 100,000 years old.  In fact, it is the oldest medical science on the planet.   African health practitioners are devoted to teaching individuals how to improve their physical, mental, and spiritual health through preventative lifestyles.

However, due to the current global health crises, the survival of Africans at home and worldwide is becoming increasingly dependent upon the cooperation and communication of  Africa with her descendents in the Diaspora. This includes the merging of mother-tongue indigenous knowledge systems with western technology, merging natural health practices with western diagnostics, creating a model environment blending the traditional and modern, and building a sustainable bridge that links Africa with her African descendents wherever we are in the world.

One of the key mechanisms for enhancing the quality of life for all Ugandans is the establishment of a formal framework through which adequate healthcare can reach all citizens. However, it is becoming more apparent that the healthcare system in Uganda, as it stands today, does not adequately address itself to solving the multitudes of health problems and concerns of all Ugandans. In this context, it is apparent that the integration of traditional medicine into the national healthcare system has the potential to augment, strengthen and promote better healthcare for all, in conformity with the national health vision.

Traditional Medicine in Health Care

Seldom documented, African indigenous knowledge (AIK) in health care is passed orally from generation to generation. Unfortunately, scientific awareness of the value of  African indigenous knowledge is growing at a time when such knowledge is under tremendous threat. It is in danger of disappearing as a result of the ever-growing Western influences for rapid technological change and because the capacity and facilities needed to document, evaluate, validate, protect and disseminate such knowledge are lacking. For this situation to change, infrastructures, facilities, research, and financial resources are needed. More research needs to be done on AIK systems and methods developed for dealing with it. African claims of indigenous solutions to specific health problems by indigenous knowledge systems need to be validated and attempts made to improve or adapt those systems. This research should be conducted with people who possess the indigenous knowledge and with the local communities involved. Uganda can become a model by taking the initiative and developing an independent and alternative health care system based primarily upon their indigenous knowledge of herbs, food and plants.

Currently, we are witnessing a breakdown of western systems to cure diseases, derived from both natural and unnatural causes. Most pharmaceutical drugs, developed primarily to relieve symptoms, do not cure diseases. Vaccines are developed to immunize against disease, but can also be use to spread disease. Economic interest has the main reason why no medical breakthroughs exist for the control or elimination of the most common diseases and why these diseases continue like epidemics on a worldwide scale. The pharmaceutical industry withholds public information about the effects and risks of their prescription drugs and vaccines and life-threatening side-effects are omitted or openly denied. Many Africans, like their counterparts throughout the Diaspora, cannot even afford pharmaceutical drugs to alleviate the symptoms of disease.

On observation, we find evidence that the same diseases are affecting Africans in Uganda, other parts of  Africa and the Diaspora in alarming numbers. There is an overwhelming need for African traditional indigenous medicine to become familiar with modern herbal practices and clinical procedures, so that African Traditional Medicine can gain distinctions like that of other traditional  medicines. In addition, African indigenous medicine when viewed in a modern clinical setting will elevate the public’s perception of the “Traditional African Herbalist.”

The African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic

Traditional healers are the major health labor resource in Africa as a whole. In Uganda, indigenous traditional healers are the only source of health services for the majority of the population. For these reasons and more, BHSN has created "The African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic", located in Bukoto, Kampala, Uganda. "The African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic" is a modern clinic facility created to establish a model space, whereby indigenous herbal practitioners and healers can upgrade and update their skills through training and certification and learn to respond to common and uncommon diseases using African healing methods and traditions in a modern clinical environment.  This environmental blending of traditional African medicine and western technology is a powerful concept.  Many of the indigenous traditional healers have not had formal training. Their knowledge has been passed on by oral tradition. Therefore as an educational tool, the clinic is conducting its research in Mother-tongue and English.  Through the African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic, we intend to modernize indigenous health resources, standardise effectively-known herbal preparations and cures for trade on the local and export markets, and certify competent African traditional medical practitioners.

With information gathered from a community needs survey conducted by BHSN in Bukoto Parish, Kampala in October 2005, we have identified 12 immediate diseases affecting area residents. Therefore, we concentrated our efforts on herbal medicines for these disorders to affect lasting cures. We are researching and testing existing traditional African herbal formulas (usage, standardization, quality control and dosage) to refine them and develop new ones as well. Our aim is to use this concept throughout various communities in Uganda to effectively fight diseases at home, the natural way, then take it abroad to other parts of the African continent and the Diaspora where our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children are suffering from the same diseases, only in larger numbers. Moreover, our African biochemistry requires a type of nutritional support (African dietetics) that is not readily available in western cultures or through western medicine. The science of   African biochemistry is based on the biochemical molecule, melanin. The lack of melanin-sustaining foods, which can be found in plant phyto-nutrients is one of the major causes of our nutritional deficiencies and diseases. We plan to make the community aware of the foods they must eat to stay healthy.