How COVID-19 is helping to rediscover Sino-Africa traditional medicine
By Stephen Ndegwa, April 27, 2021News that a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic is offering Zimbabweans an affordable alternative to medical care has made excited the Africa’s health sector in a continent still struggling to attain decent and affordable healthcare for its people.
Opened in 2020, the Harare-based Zimbabwe-China Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Center has at this month attended to 150 people suffering from various ailments including hypertension, lumbar spine pain, diabetes and hernia free of charge.
But the TCM team does not seek to replace Western conventional medicine. Rather, they see the two as complementary, with each applicable where the other experiences challenges in offering effective healthcare.
For instance, while conventional painkillers temporarily relieve pain as the symptoms of the illness persists, TCM treatments like acupuncture are more long lasting and sustainable healing. Moreover, TCM has fewer side effects than its counterpart.
Now, as the world continues grappling with COVID-19, both China and Africa are coming together in the same spirit of seeking effective alternatives in fighting the pandemic. On Monday, for instance, African and Chinese scholars held a virtual seminar on Prevention and
Control of COVID-19 Pandemic by Chinese and African Traditional Medicine organized by the Beijing based China-Africa Institute.
Traditional medicine was a reality for centuries for both Africans and the Chinese. Before the advent of Western medicine, this ancient medicine was the standard of medical care in both societies. The inadequacy of conventional medicine in managing and curing the coronavirus has led to a revisit of herbal remedies of yore. Chinese and Africa traditional medicine has
been playing a crucial role to protect peoples’ health and life even during the height of the pandemic particularly in China.
in his keynote speech at the BRICS Summit in 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the five parties to hold symposium on traditional medicine to explore its role in coronavirus prevention and treatment. In the same role at the 2021 Bo’ao Forum for Asia mid-April, Xi also pointed out that China will contribute to global health governance through cooperation on pandemic prevention and control, public health and traditional medicine.
Chinese medicine greatly helped patients recover from novel coronavirus infection, and has a profound and far-reaching significance for the staged success over the pandemic. More than 90% of the patients were treated with the total effective rate of more than 90 percent.
During the pandemic in Hubei Province, more than 74,000 people used TCM, accounting for 91.5 percent of the cases. Clinical efficacy observation shows that TCM can effectively alleviate symptoms, reduce advancement of symptoms to full disease, promote recovery and reduce the mortality rate.
According to TCM expert Malian Dr. Diarra Boubacar based at the Hospital of TCM in Chengdu, traditional medicine has undergone thousands of years of clinical experience on hundreds of millions of people instead of guinea pigs.
Boubacar, who is also the vice president of the World Federation of TCM, cites six major advantages of traditional medicine as opposed to conventional modes of treatment as follows:
- The clinical curative effect is definite
- Relatively safe drugs
- Flexible service mode
- Relatively low cost
- Huge potential
- Very wide in scope
Currently, the TCM expert says that currently 80 percent of the world’s population equivalent to four billion people use Chinese herbal medicine products as knowledge of TCM’s efficacy grows. However, in the dissemination of TCM to the rest of the world, the expert says that China recognizes the characteristics and laws of cross-cultural transmission, so as to meet the
psychological, cultural and spiritual needs of the people in other countries.
“Promoting both TCM and traditional African medicine is a big project that benefits the world, especially the developing world. With the development of modern economy, science and technology, I believe that there will be more advanced medical equipment, more effective traditional medicines, and more sophisticated treatment methods,” says Boubacar.
Ongoing implementation of the China-Africa community of health for all initiative through the principles of China’s Africa policy – sincerity, practical results, affinity and good faith is successful. This includes the dispatch of public health and medical experts to Africa to provide both technical support and medical supplies, supporting construction of the African Centre for Disease Control and prevention and collaboration mechanism between China and African counterpart hospitals. The two partners have also actively shared the knowledge, experience and lessons in fighting against the pandemic.
Deepening China-Africa health cooperation aims at constructing a China-Africa community of health for all, and target to promote African countries’ independent development ability and build resilience in the continent’s healthcare systems. China seeks to make positive contributions to African and global public health security to help meet the health UN Sustainable Development Goal.
The writer is the Executive Director of South-South Dialogues, a Nairobi based development communication think tank.