HEALTH-GABON: People Living with AIDS Turn to Traditional Healers

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoine Lawson

LIBREVILLE, Mar 28 2003 (IPS) - With medical bills constantly shooting up, people living with HIV/AIDS in Gabon are increasingly turning to traditional healers for treatment.

One of the most popular traditional healers, Dr. Ferdinand Ngoubili, the founder of the Association for Research into Natural Healing Secrets, has been treating some of the country’s 32,000 individuals living with HIV/AIDS since he set up his clinic in Libreville, the capital of Gabon, two years ago.

"I was diagnosed HIV-positive after a medical evaluation and I immediately consulted Dr. Ngoubili, who had been recommended to me by a relative who was also living with AIDS. My relative’s health has improved. She has delivered two normal children after receiving treatment from Dr. Ngoubili," recalls Sylvianne Kumba, an elementary school teacher in Libreville.

"The majority of the people, who come to me right away after they become infected, find satisfaction with my herbs," says Ngoubili.

Asked how long the treatment lasts, he says: "Depending on an individual case, it could take between one and three years. After it’s over, the patient submits to a laboratory test to see if he, or she, has had satisfactory treatment. In most cases, people say they feel better".

In the 1980s, Ngoubili launched an ambitious research project on "alternative, non-conventional techniques for AIDS prevention and treatment".

"The Canadian government provided financial support for my research," he explains.

Between 1996 and 1997 Ngoubili received around 6,000 U.S. dollars, thanks to the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI), for his research.

Those days anti-retroviral drugs, used for managing HIV/AIDS, cost between 350,000 and 450,000 CFA (about 583 U.S. dollars and 750 U.S. dollars) a month. Today, the price has dropped to 60,000 CFA (about 100 U.S. dollars). "Still this is unaffordable to most Gabonese who earn a minimum wage of 42,000 CFA (about 70 U.S. dollars) a month," laments one Libreville pharmacist, who says some patients stop treatment because they lack the funds to pay for it.

With the state-run National Programme Against AIDS now looking after people living with HIV/AIDS, students and the unemployed receive subsidised treatment and pay only between 3,000 and 18,000 CFA (between around five and 30 U.S. dollars) for a monthly dose of anti-retroviral drugs.

The organisation estimates that since 2002, the rate of HIV infection in Libreville, where more than half Gabon’s 1.2 million people lives, is 7.7 percent, and in Port-Gentil, the country’s port city and economic capital, the rate is eight percent.

With his knowledge of the secrets of natural plants and their metabolic properties, Ngoubili gathers plants in the forest and uses their extracts to prepare the drugs he prescribes for his patients.

"Fresh plants are put into a container and are marinated and distilled so that their medicinal properties are maintained. AIDS patients keep to a strict vegetarian diet, which promotes cellular regeneration," Ngoubili explains.

In Feb 1996, after meeting with the World Health Organisation’s regional director for Africa, Dr. Ibrahim Samba – an advocate of traditional medicine – in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, Ngoubili presented the results of his studies on the people living with HIV/AIDS that he had treated.

African hospitals are outstretched and Samba has been encouraging traditional healers to supplement the efforts of medical doctors.

At Ngoubili’s health centre, patients get to know each other, and exchange ideas among themselves.

Ngoubili also receives support from medical doctors, who sometimes send him their most hopeless cases, people suffering from other diseases that modern medicine has no cure for.

A woman, aged 30, who requested anonymity, told IPS that after her cancerous breast was removed and doctors at the hospital gave her only a few months to live, she resorted to herbal treatment. "Herbal treatment administered by Ngoubili allowed me to live longer than the medical doctors had said I would. My health also improved, which has encouraged me to continue treatment to eliminate toxics from my body," she explains.

The major problem facing AIDS groups is how to change the sexual behaviour of a large minority of the population, which refuses to wear condoms.

Even if traditional medicine has had some limited success in managing HIV/AIDS, it is also a cause for concern among international health organisations. They worry about the increasing confusion caused by some quack herbalists, who thrive when a lack of information and training makes every patient an easy prey.