AFRICAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINE DAY
African traditional medicine day is celebrated every year on the 31st of August across the continent. This day is set aside to enhance the link between traditional medicine and institutional health care in line with the WHO strategy.
Traditional medicine contributes to physical and mental well-being and uses a diversity of knowledge and approaches, including plant-based medicine and spiritual ceremonies.
95% of the population in rural areas of the African continent depends on traditional medicine. Traditional medicine is famous because it is accessible, affordable, and culturally valuable.
Due to poor roads, or the total lack of roads, accessing modern health care is quite tough hence traditional medicine is all that the rural communities are left with. Though society has made health care accessible to some extent, some people still stick to traditional medicine because of cultural reasons. It’s common to see a teenager in Africa going into the forest to harvest herbs, almost impossible to find someone who knows nothing on how to remedy malaria with herbs. The society has now recognized the importance of traditional medicine and is now exploiting it. Traditional medicine has been passed on from generation to generation to date.
It is known that some 80% of the population of Cameroon uses traditional medicine in one way or the other, often conventionally with modern drugs. There are diseases that the local population believes only traditional medicine can handle; like mental disorder, and what they believe to be witchcraft-related illnesses.
Traditional medicine has face criticism due to lack of consistency, prescriptions are orally done, it is rare for any two traditional practitioners to have the same drug for a given disease or speak the same medical language, their knowledge is not shared but passed to kids.
Integrating traditional medicine into the health care of every country will save knowledge from getting extinct and will save our cultural values.
The giant king grass
The king grass is a fast-growing, high yield, hybrid grass. It grows on a variety of soil conditions and does not compete with food crops.
Uses of King Grass
⇒ Improves male libido and helps in premature ejaculation. Restores weak erection in men and bolster men’s sexual power.
- Method of preparation
Wash, squeeze or blend fresh leaves and drink. Sweetener (preferably honey) may be added to improve the taste.
⇒ An antidote for poisoning
- Method of preparation
Chew seven heads with alligator pepper or squeeze fresh leaves and drink the juice.
⇒Stops diarrhea
- Method of preparation.
Prepare the leaves as soup with enough pure palm oil (don’t bleach the oil) and eaten without food in good quantity to stop diarrhea.
By Agahbom Princewill Z.
