Winfrith Hikloch Ogola
New Member
- Jan 31, 2022
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Section of tropical forest at Gombe Island in Tanzania, the home of world famous Chimpanzees of Tanzania. The Tanzania Forest Services (TFS) reports indigenous plants that make tropical forests disappear at the rate of 10 percent a year. Traditional Medicine (TM) practitioners in the country stand to reverse this trend as they plant own indigenous medicinal and nutritional plants.
By Winfrith Hikloch Ogola
When the Traditional Medicine for Nature Conservation (TMNC) programme started in Tanzania two years ago, least was known that Covid-19 control measures would bolster its implementation into an outstanding agro-forestry prgramme it is today. The call by the government of Tanzania (GoT) on Traditional Medicine (TM) to invest in search of treatment and to mobilize its clients for vaccination ushered in efforts that have seen TM practitioners engage in forestry recovery measures with unprecedented results.
Dr. Machakosi China Sinja, a veteran TM practitioner says the Health Ministry call in 2021 for increased co-operation between Modern Health Care (MHC) and TM - also referred to as Traditional and Alternative Health Care (TAHC) - systems against the pandemic has led to the establishment of health services referral pathways between the two systems; opening financial opportunities that have attracted TM practitioners in TMNC to forest conservation.
A key benefit of the health services referral pathways that are essentially based on a 12-point protocol in TM research, training, equipment, communication, clinical trials and exchange of patients is the increase in income for TM practitioners as they receive more referred patients from the MHC system. Figure 1 below shows the number of patients referred from MHC to TAHC system as documented in a survey of 30 TM practitioners for this article involved in the protocols operating in Tanzania’s Lake Zone regions of Mara, Mwanza and Simiyu.
Figure 1. Number of patients referred from MHC to TM or TAHC system.
The increase in clients to TM has ushered in high incomes and great demand for medicine on the part of TM practitioners. Lucrative incomes that in some cases exceed TZS 1,000,000 have triggered efforts by TM practitioners in TMNC to grow medicinal and nutritional plants in order to meet medicine demands. Figure 2 below shows the increase in income for TM practitioners as a result of increase in number of patients referred from MHC system.
Figure 2: The increase in annual revenue for TM practitiners as result of increase in number of patients refrred from MHC system.
“Sometimes I receive up to 15 patients who pay me over TZS 1,000,000”, says Achieng Odemba who no longer takes the risk of invading protected forests or other peoples’ lands to collect medical material sources for her potions. “Now I grow my medicinal plants on my own land”, says the 60 years old widow. The mother of six children, Achieng and most (98%) of the interviewed TM practitioners implementing the MHC – TAHC protocols in the Lake Zone regions have each planted two hectares of medicinal trees and nutritional plants to develop their medical material sources.
There are as many medicinal indigenous trees and plants with medical properties as each TM can identify. Some of the medicinal indigenous trees include a wide range of species of acacia, sausage trees, cashew trees, pawpaw trees, neem trees, birch trees and a host of other tropical trees. Other plants include species of aloe, sisal plant, varieties of pepper, bacopa and many other creeping plants. Edible crops and cereals include finger millet, sesame, varieties of wild vegetables and fruits, some of which are on the verge of extinction. Figure 3 below shows the extent to which TM practitioners have planted their own medicinal and nutritional trees and plants under the health services referral pathways protocol.
Figure3: The number of medicinal and nutritional trees planted in one year by TM practitioners.
Dr. Sinja, the Executive Director of SHIMAUTITA, who also oversees the management of the five-year TMNC programme, says the USD 120,000 (TZS 264,000,000) programme started countrywide in 2020 is empowering TM practitioners to grow an expected 8,000 hectares of indigenous trees and other medicinal and nutritional plants by the end of this year. Supported by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), TMNC is planned to enable TM practitioners plant a total of 15,000 hectares when it comes to an end in 2025.
Under TMNC, the high value vanilla crop is particularly targeted by most TM practitioners in Kilimanjaro, Njombe and Kegera where wet weather permits growth. Leaves of the vanilla plant are singly or combined with other potions are widely used in TM to treat mental illnesses, peptic ulcers, blood pressure and depression. A creeping plant, the vanilla crop grows friendly with shady indigenous trees like Lucina to constitute a highly paying agroforestry practice in the programme. The Tanzania Vanilla Centre reports that a Kilogramme of vanilla sells at TZS 100,000 in local markets, this being ten times more than traditionally valued export crops such as coffee, tea and cotton.
The high commercial value vanilla plant also has many traditional medicine properties. Traditional medicine practitioners in Tanzania increasingly grow the plant for medicine and as a cash crop to increase income. (Credit: Nutraceutical Business Review)
TMNC and the MHC-TAHC protocols are two different initiatives of SHIMAUTITA but their interdependence gives hope for growth of a vast new forest cover by TM practitioners countrywide beyond TMNC as members reap the benefits of the protocols. So far, the health services referral pathways operate in three regions in the country’s Lake Zone regions and will only be spread to 19 other regions in the next two years. TMNC started a year earlier and is spread countrywide. “TMNC is an exemplary afforestation programme of its own kind in Tanzania providing health, income, food and land security for the predominantly poor, especially women in remote rural villages”, says a forest conservator with the Tanzania Forest Services (TFS) in Mara region, Joseph Urio.
TFS is a development partner in the TMNC programme that has so far provided training in planting and managing indigenous plants particularly seeding and spacing for 85% of TM practitioners in the MHC – TAHC co-operation. TFS has also provided the TM practitioners with farm equipment and market information all of which have spurred unprecedented productivity and public participation peculiar from previous other afforestation programmes based on exotic tree species. “Both TMNC and the health referral pathways provide a historic new beginning for TM to support my family, community and nation” says Odemba enthusiastically.
The TMNC programme has a significant mark on food and nutrition issues especially as it relates to women who according to local culture are predominantly responsible for family health. Figure 4 below shows the gender composition in the health services referral pathways protocols as captured in the survey of TM practitioners but also reflect a general picture of the role of women in TMNC at large.
Figure 4: Gender composition of TM practitioners.
To accurately calculate the capacity of the TMNC afforestation programme to absorb carbon de-oxide emissions in the country is complicated but generally the Global Forest Resources Assessments organization calculates that one hectare of low forest in Tanzania can absorb 24-meter cubes of carbon dioxide. Going by this calculation, the 8000 – 15,000 hectares TMNC afforestation programme may sink between 192,000 and 360,000 cubic meters of carbon dioxide, a substantial reduction in the short time and by a small number of people in a country whose economy is increasingly becoming carbon-constrained.
On the medical front, TM is increasingly filling a large gap in health provision by hospitals, health centres, dispensaries and other MHC systems in the country. Health staff and medical equipment are already overworked and overstretched to provide proper consultation, services and treatment in government health facilities without offering kickback. Statistics from the Health Ministry show that there is one qualified medical doctor (MD) per 2500 patients. Besides, in rural Tanzania villagers have to walk an average of two to three kilometres to the nearest health centre, a relatively long distance in an emergency health problem where there is neither a doctor nor an ambulance and most people are not accessible to mobile communication.
Although a good part of the USD 560 million international financial support the country received for Covid-19 recovery has gone to improve health infrastructure, shortage of imported industrial medicine and the rising difficult living conditions following the war between Russia and Ukraine have further complicated the cost of treatment for majority poor. “TM is set to alleviate some of these grim conditions” says Assistant Registrar of the National Traditional Medicine Council (BARAZA), Mr. Mdehani Msigwa adding that ‘’TM is culturally acceptable, easily accessible and cost effective”. BARAZA research reports show six out of ten people consult TM practitioners for counselling, treatment.
The number of TM practitioners is increasing under the health services referral pathways between TAHC and MHC. According to the survey of TM practitioners, their official registration by BARAZA rose by 30% in a year while half (50%) of their medical potions are currently under test for their potency before approval for mass marketing and use by the National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) and Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA)
Officials from both TAHC and MHC health orientations appreciate the health services referral pathways is locally viable. Dr. Sinja who is also the Executive Director of SHIMAUTITA on behalf of TAHC says certain components of the “protocols have to undergo trials and adjustments to meet specific professional demands of each station”. The Mara Regional Medical Officer (RMO), Dr. Juma Mfanga, on behalf of the six participating Colleges of Health and Allied Sciences (COHAS) says “there is progress as each system refers cases it cannot treat properly to the other system that claims competence in treating the cases”. Figure 5 below shows the number of patients the TM practitioners refer to modern industrial medicine (MM) following the referral pathways. The number includes cases of suspected Covid-19.
Figure 5: The number of patients the TM practitioners refer to MM
With less than 10% of her population vaccinated, Tanzania’s national Covid-19 vaccination programme can be said to be lagging behind compared to neighboring Kenya, for example. Vaccination rates in the Lake Zone regions, however, are twice higher than elsewhere. In this region “there is a gradual increase in the number of patients from TAHC to MHC system consisting greatly of Covid-19 cases”, says Dr. Ibrahim Bakari of the Musoma Clinical Officers Training College (Musoma COTC), one among the six COHAS co-operating in the referral pathways.
A medical analyst and Director of Imani COHAS, Mr. Frank Magare, says efforts to promote TAHC “are making TM an effective public health player”. BARAZA reports there is great shift in government policy towards TM as the government is determined to identify and register all TM practitioners, provide them with pharmaceutical patent right and build a multi-million TM pharmaceutical factory. The move is expected to cut down the cost of importing industrial drugs by 25% in the next decade, says the BARAZA Assistant Registrar.
This article was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN)
