what is traditional medicine?
Traditional medicine is the utilization of the knowledge, skills, and practices of indigenous cultures to prevent and treat physical, mental, and spiritual illnesses. Traditional medicine is distinct from allopathic medicine in its philosophy of treating the whole person rather than isolated parts.
Effective, indigenous herbal treatments exist for malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and more. However, these remedies have been ignored by a system that values profitable, patentable, chemical drugs over unpatentable plant medicines.
Three billion people worldwide rely on traditional medicine as their primary form of healthcare. In sub-Saharan Africa 80% of the population, or 750 million people, rely on traditional medicine for their healthcare needs. According to the World Health Organization the ratio of traditional medicine practitioners to population in sub-Saharan Africa is 1:250. The availability of allopathic practitioners is 1:70,000 in rural areas and 1:20,000 in large urban areas.
Although traditional medicine is the first line of treatment in the developing world, large gaps exist between use, policy, and research and development of traditional medicines. The World Bank estimates the global market for medicinal plants to be approximately US$65 billion annually, growing to US$100 billion by 2011. However, the industry of traditional medicine is almost entirely informal, making it difficult to systematically benefit the communities from which these resources originate.