African indigenous medicines: towards a holistic healthcare system in Africa

ABSTRACT

This paper responds broadly to two critical issues. First, is the concept of Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) in the context of Africa’s and global value system that imposes one form of health practice as a dominant (and, therefore, mainstream) healthcare system and other types as alternatives to it. Secondly, is the place of CAM in Africa’s health policies. Within the context of Africa’s health system, the conceptualisation of indigenous medical knowledge and its value about its history, practices, traditions, and cosmology as CAM, undermines the heritage of a people and denies the multiple realities of a polyvocal world. Any society with a healthy population before modernity demonstrates the possession of a valid medical knowledge and a responsive healthcare system. The dismal health indicators of contemporary Africa speak to the lack of political will and the challenges inherent in Africa’s health policies that undermine the reservoir of indigenous medical knowledge and methods. Using examples of endogenous healing, the potential benefits and constraints associated with African medical experience and practices are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Health crisis in Africa
• Western medicine
• indigenous healing practices
• complementary and alternative medicine
• healthcare policy
• Africa

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alex Asakitikpi

Dr. Alex Asakitikpi was formerly a Professor and Head of Sociology Department at Monash University South Africa and currently the Head of School of Social Science at IIEMSA  in Johannesburg. He is an executive board member of Research Committee 15 of the International Sociological Association and a non-resident scholar at the Center for Religion, Theology and Health, Duke University. His research focuses on health policy in Africa, the interface of religion/spirituality and health outcomes, Africa indigenous medicines and systems, and the socio-cultural context of diseases and illness.