Traditional health practitioners are key to scaling up comprehensive care for HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa
Homsy, J.; King, R.; Balaba, D.; Kabatesi, D.
Aids 18(12): 1723-1725
2004
ISSN/ISBN: 0269-9370 PMID: 15280784 DOI: 10.1097/01.aids.0000131380.30479.16Document Number: 234899
This paper discusses the importance of African traditional health practitioners (THP) in AIDS and sexually transmitted disease prevention and care. The need to train them to support voluntary counselling and testing, the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and highly active antiretroviral therapy, to strengthen existing referral facilities, and to build a functional THP-biomedical health practitioner cross-referral system, is emphasized. It is concluded that traditional healers and traditional birth attendants constitute an extensive network potentially capable of expanding and simplifying access to comprehensive HIV care through various entry points.