When the 2000 International AIDs Conference was held in Durban, a city of South Africa that is plagued with the disease, the discussions gave a clear verdict: if anything was to be done about the AIDs epidemic, traditional healers had to be involved. Since 80% of South Africans--South Africa suffers from the worst of the AIDs epidemic--go to traditional healers, it makes sense to try to reach them that way. The problem is that traditional medicine holds almost no resemblance to what Western doctors are used to. A healer gets advice on how to treat a patient through the spirits of ancestors, and disease is considered a result of witchcraft, or breaking a social taboo.
So, when the President's Emergency Plan for AIDs Relief was put forward in 2002, the idea of cooperation, while appealing, looked unlikely. Critics said the plan was wasting money on the wrong drugs, and that too much emphasis was being put on religion-based ideas of abstincence. It looked like working through traditional healers was going to fall by the wayside, while politics led to familiar ineffectivenes.
But may wonders never cease, health experts in the administration have been genuinely started working with healers. An experimental program to train healers in Durban, where 40% of the adult population has AIDs, is under way. The training program teaches how to recognize symptoms, administer blood tests, and keep records. Compensating for cultural differences, while not always easy, is actually being done. It's a remarkable example of things going right, in international cooperation.
