NAME PARDON TANAKA MATYAKA

REGISTRATION NUMBER R205428Y

PROGRAM BMS

MODULE HERITAGE BASED MEDICINE

LECTURER

QUESTION 1 …an African quest for medicine that is

sensitive and sympathetic to her indigenous

Cultural and cognitive values vis-a-vis

Health and disease. Is that a necessary quest

given that 80% of the world population is

said to be relying on traditional medicine for

their health care. Explain your answer?

Traditional medicine is the sum total of knowledge, skills, and practices based on the

theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures that are used to

maintain health, as well as to prevent, diagnose, improve, or treat physical and mental

illnesses. Culture can be defined as a way of life. Cognitive values are the aspects that

build up your culture or what you believe in, things you respect in your life. Basically

culture and cognitive values can be said to be based on belief and tradition. The use of

a drug that is sensitive and sympathetic to one’s culture and cognitive values will

always make a difference in his/her perception and trust in the medicine. The

development of medicine based and sensitive to African tradition will always give

proud and satisfaction to Africans furthermore reducing African expenditure in

importing exotic traditional medicine. However the process of developing medicine

based on African can be long, expensive and extremely dangerous to both

environment and people.

According to the United States on htts://www.fda.gov/patients/drug-development-

process the drug development is a process that includes discovery and development.

Discovering a drug might be based on some traditional based medicine of a certain

culture used to cure certain diseases and maintain health. However the drug undergoes

a lot of testing and refining to determine dosage, effectiveness and how it interacts

with other drugs. This process allows the drug to be declared clinically active and

effective. 80% of the drugs we used today are said to have undergone this evolution

from different traditions and cultures. Out of these 80% African medicine holds the

least of all, however the quest for a drug that is sensitive to African tradition is

increasing. In an article about toxicity and safety of use of African herbs, Merlin, L.

K. in 2019 admitted that African medicine have become increasingly useful.

Development of new clinical drug based on African tradition seems very impossible

due to our lost and scattered culture. A vibrant history and culture is one of the pillars

that support development of our traditional medicine. Most of our African countries

have lost their culture due to their distorted history. Developing an effective drug

requires the when, how and why our fathers used certain shrubs and herbs against

certain diseases and health support. According to D. Tagwirei in his article in 2002,

traditional medicine was reported as major poisoning in Zimbabwe. Traditional

medicine if improperly administered can cause poisoning; it requires greater

knowledge.

An effective drug is the one the includes the type of diet of the patient. This calls out

that some medicine used long back in our tradition are no longer applicable to this era

since our diet is a way different from theirs, for example they is requirement of a

primary drug before taking the secondary main coarse. Some of these primary drug

where ingested through food, making it possible for the main drug or herd to cure a

disease or to maintain health. Other African traditional drugs require a very high fibre

content before taking it which was compensated by their high dietary fibre content

routine foods like sorghum.

Development of African sensitive medicine may lead to a break through in medicine.

Some say that African traditional healers have a wide knowledge on how to cure the

most deadly diseases like AIDS and cancer which are now said to have no cure. The

quest for African sensitive medicine can bring evolution to the medical society. For

example some drugs now used to cure male erector dysfunction were evolved in
African medicine. The development of African medicine have not only an effect in its

sensitive and sympathy to our culture but also cheap and affordable, Merlin L. K.

(2019).

The development of an African traditional medicine brings a sense of satisfaction to

Africans. The increase in trust and reliance on clinical medical help will be acceptable

to religious people. This would in turn lower risk of death of some diseases that can

be cured clinically. Some people don’t take pills preferring traditional medicine

inform of herbs and shrubs but knowing that the same content is in clinical pills

increases their reliance on pills. Also the fear of the unknown ingredients of pills

deeply affect our confidence in using the foreign traditional drugs.

The use of African traditional medicine not properly tested however can be classified

as as unethical drug test. Without knowing the dosage and the long or short term side

effect of the herb however might be suicide, for example, from 1913 to 1951, Dr. Leo

Stanley, chief surgeon at the San Quentin Prison, performed a wide variety of

experiments on hundreds of prisoners at San Quentin, which resulted in lose of life.

Issuing African drugs that did not go through proper lab test is risky and may result in

lose of life. Greater concern must be given in funding and financing the research

facility in order to produce quality reliable African drugs.

The quest for a medicine sensitive to African culture would require support from both

the medical field and government. Lacking these support will result in improper self-

practitioners who are unskilled and this might be dangerous, (Nudrat Fatima and

Naira Nayeem, 2016). The quest might be necessary given that all people are to
cooperate and focus on the goal. The quest for a locally available cheap medicine is of

benefit to both government and citizens in terms of expenditure. This might also

increase exports to those who appreciate the African traditional medicine and hence

income for example the Harpagophytum procumbens mainly found in South Africa,

Botswana, and Namibia is widely exported to Europe, (M. Fawzi Mahomoodally,

2013). The quest might also lead to the creation of job opportunities like the Green

World company which is one of the growing health companies in Zimbabwe based on

Chinese tradition and a part of African tradition.

Development of African based medicine is almost impossible due to our lost or

diluted culture and tradition. Most of the African people being Christians tend to be

comfortable by using medicine based on exotic traditions. The use of our traditional

medicine is now deemed backward, archaic and wrong according to new tradition of

Christians, for example other newly formed churches forbid people on using

‘Zumbani’ a common traditional African based medicine used to treat common cold.

An African herbalist is now considered a ‘N’anga’(the one who deals with spiritual

welfare in ATR) making a negative impact on the quest. This again backpedals the

quest of medicine based on our culture.

Therefore the quest for medicine that is sensitive to African culture is very necessary

in respect to job employment creation, generation of income for African countries

through exports, development of DNA sensitive medicine, satisfaction and confidence

in the medicine, trust and belief, cooperation between health care providers and

patients, locally available medicine and increasing the probability of discovery of new

medicine against diseases without cures so far like cancer. Against all these are the
change in culture and belief of Africans, time consuming, requirement of funds for

drug development, almost impossible gather the information about African traditional

medicine and lack of knowledge on how and when to deliver the medication.
REFERENCES

1. Htts:/www.fda.gov/patients/drug-development-process

2. D. Tagwireyi, D. E. Ball, C. F. B. Nhachi, Traditional medicine poisoning in

Zimbabwe, PubMed (1 November 2002)

3. Merlin L. K. et al (2019), Toxicity and safety implications of herbal medicine,

Intechopen

4. Wikipedia: unethical experimentation of drugs in United States

5. Nudrat Fatima and Naira Nayeem (2016). Toxic Effects as a Result of Herbal

Medicine Intake (htts://dx.doi.org/10.5772/64468), INTECH publishers

6. M. Fawzi Mahomoodally, 2013. Traditional Medicines in Africa: An Appraisal

of Ten Potent African Medicinal Plants, Hindawi publishing cooperation