AIDS in Africa: Scenarios for the Future -
As the world continues to watch the AIDS epidemic
wreck havoc throughout the African continent, we realize that a
valuable resource – that of traditional medicine and its
practitioners – is markedly underutilized. It is often
said that for a health education message to be understood and
health seeking behavior to be positively modified two things are
required:
the right message and the right messenger.
(Authors: Erick V. A. Gbodossou, M.D., Virginia Davis Floyd,
M.D., M.P.H., and Charles Ibnou Katy, M.A.)
UNAIDS - AIDS Scenarios in AFRICA
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Traditional Medicine – Growing Needs and Potential -
Populations throughout Africa, Asia and Latin
America use traditional medicine (TM) to help meet their primary
health care needs. As well as being accessible and affordable,
TM is also often part of a wider belief system, and considered
integral to everyday life and well-being. Meanwhile, in
Australia, Europe and North America, “complementary and
alternative medicine” (CAM)1 is increasingly used in parallel to
allopathic medicine, particularly for treating and managing
chronic disease. (World Health Organization, Geneva, May
2002)
Working with traditional health practitioners
- ‘Western’ or ‘modern’ medicine can reduce levels of HIV in the body and treat HIV-related opportunistic infections, but many people with HIV have no access to even the most basic western medicines. It is estimated that in many developing countries, particularly in the rural areas, four out of every five people visit traditional health practitioners and use traditional treatments.
(AIDS Actions)
Route of Slaves -
It was on the proposal of Haiti and the African countries, the initiators of this project, that the
General Conference of UNESCO approved, at its 27th session in 1993, the implementation of The Slave Route project . (27 C/Resolution 3.13). The project was officially launched in 1994 in Ouidah, Benin. While the concept of a route reflects the dynamics of the movement of peoples, civilizations and cultures, that of slave focuses not on the universal phenomenon of slavery but, specifically and explicitly, on the transatlantic, Indian Ocean and Mediterranean slave trades.
(UNESCO Newsletter No. 1 - September 2000);
http://webworld.unesco.org/goree/
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
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Combating
HIV/AIDS -
Experience of the Tanga AIDS Working
Group in Tanzania. (The World Bank Group)
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Articles