The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka, Senior Reporter
THE National Aids Council (Nac), working with The International Union Against Tuberculosis (TB) and Lung Disease (The Union), has incorporated traditional and faith healers in fighting TB, an official has said.
Nac monitoring and evaluation director Mr Amon Mpofu told Sunday News recently that the move was aimed at reducing TB deaths caused by delayed treatment.
The council, set up as the national co-ordinator for the country’s HIV response programme, is also making efforts to fight TB owing to the high HIV-TB co-infection rate.
According to the Global TB Report of 2016, Zimbabwe has a high rate of HIV and TB co-infection estimated at 70 percent.
Mr Mpofu said under the programme traditional and faith healers were being equipped with enough information on TB to enable them to identify symptoms of the disease and refer patients to public sector health facilities on time.
He said the council embarked on the programme after realising that a number of people were seeking treatment for TB from traditional healers first, leading to delayed diagnosis and treatment of TB.
“Equipping faith healers with TB information will enable them to identify and refer individuals with TB symptoms for follow up and further evaluation in public-sector diagnostic facilities,” he said.
Added Mr Mpofu, “We believe that most people seek treatment from faith and traditional healers first and only go to hospital when their conditions have worsened leading to delayed treatment.
“So if we give traditional healers enough information on TB they will be able to quickly identify their patients showing symptoms of TB and refer them for proper diagnosis at formal health centres as soon as possible.”
Mr Mpofu said one of the leading causes of deaths from TB is delayed treatment, hence the need to plug that gap by working with traditional leaders often trusted as sources of health information.
He said the first phase of the programme, which kicked off last month, will cover traditional healers in 32 districts in all the country’s 10 provinces.
“We are doing this in phases. The first phase covers 32 districts in all the 10 provinces. Eventually we will cover all the districts countrywide.
“Because the traditional healers are generally trusted as sources of health information and treatment, it makes sense to work with them to relay the correct information to their clients,” he said.
Zimbabwe has an estimated 45 000 traditional healers against about 1 400 medical doctors.
It is also estimated about 90 percent of the Zimbabwean population uses the services of traditional and faith healers.
Zimbabwe is one of only 14 countries around the world designated as “high burden” by the World Health Organisation for TB, multi-drug-resistant TB, and TB/HIV co-infection.
Tuberculosis is an infectious bacterial disease caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis, which most commonly affects the lungs and is transmitted via droplets from the throat and lungs of people with the active respiratory disease.
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