Traditional Medicine: Past, present and future research and development prospects and integration in the National Health System of Cameroon

TLDR

Traditional medicine, encompassing plant, animal, mineral, spiritual, and manual therapies, has become increasingly popular in Cameroon due to economic hardship, high drug costs, and rising drug resistance, positioning it as a potential source of new chemical entities. This study examines Cameroon’s strategic plan to harmonize traditional medicine with modern medicine and institutionalize integrated practices by 2012. The WHO and Cameroon government established a strategic platform to coordinate traditional medicine practice, foster synergy with modern medicine, and create an institutional framework. The paper outlines how traditional medicine’s past, present, and future roles can contribute to sustainable poverty alleviation.

Abstract

Traditional medicine refers to health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses or maintain well-being. In the last decade traditional medicine has become very popular in Cameroon, partly due to the long unsustainable economic situation in the country. The high cost of drugs and increase in drug resistance to common diseases like malaria, bacteria infections and other sexually transmitted diseases has caused the therapeutic approach to alternative traditional medicine as an option for concerted search for new chemical entities (NCE). The World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Cameroon Government has put in place a strategic platform for the practice and development of TM in Cameroon. This platform aims at harmonizing the traditional medicine practice in the country, create a synergy between TM and modern medicine and to institutionalize a more harmonized integrated TM practices by the year 2012 in Cameroon. An overview of the practice of TM past, present and future perspectives that underpins the role in sustainable poverty alleviation has been discussed. This study gives an insight into the strategic plan and road map set up by the Government of Cameroon for the organisational framework and research platform for the practice and development of TM, and the global partnership involving the management of TM in the country.Key words: Tradttional medicine, Cameroon.