High Alert

Herbal drugs gain wider acceptance

By BN Team

KENYA is gradually shifting to a new medical approach. What was once considered of little value to scientific knowledge and irrelevant to development is now rapidly being harmonized to address the country’s health and economic concerns. It is traditional medicines.
But Kenya is not alone in this shift. More than three quarters of the world’s population today depend on traditional drugs based on local plants and practices for their primary health needs, while at least 40 per cent of the world’s “modern medicines” are based on herbs and traditional medicines.
In this East African nation in which more and more people have been quietly resorting to traditional medicines, which are not only more accessible, but also more affordable than the conventional medicines.
It is estimated that between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of Kenya’s 30 million people consult herbalists and other local health practitioners, or traditional health practitioners (THPs). This has made medical researchers revert to the laboratories in an effort to validate claims by the herbalists that they can treat various diseases that are still the subject of more scientific investigation.
Others have questioned why the herbalists have remained unknown for this long if they can treat the diseases, and why they continue to work in the backstreets of urban centres. The tendency is blamed on the “colonial hangover” — the white man is said to have branded any African traditional practice witchcraft.

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