The Sunday Mail
Most HIV patients fear going for medical treatment because they are afraid to meet people they know and they may be stigmatised.
Some fear the side effects of modern medicine.
There are bosses who are afraid that they will meet their juniors at hospitals while waiting to see the modern medical doctors. Moreover when they are called by their names to collect their medicine they fear being recognised.
Some people nowadays, when diagnosed with HIV, opt to take traditional medicine as immune boosters and not for treatment of the virus.
There is no known treatment for HIV from traditional medicinal plants.
We only have immune boosters and treatments for opportunistic diseases. We are putting a lot of our effort on prevention and counseling.
Even though traditional medical practitioners (TMPs) do not manufacture condoms, most people use them with proper advice and guidance.
This is when they are encouraged to have protected sex in order to save their lives. Traditionally, transmitting diseases to a sexual partner is a sin. This will cause bad luck.
TMPs have a unique counseling system for people living with HIV. At the same time we do not discriminate against them but involve them as part of our team of counselors.
We also give support to discordant couples and encourage them to have safe sex.
As TMPs, our major challenge now is on the prevalence of pornographic videos. Everyone now has access to these.
In view of this, as TMPs we say that it is what motivates people to have unprotected sex at such a high rate as we see today.
Long back there were no commercial sex work promoters who operated strip clubs to get money through motivating prostitution.
Let us resort to our African ethics that promote and preserve our health.
Long back people were living a long healthy life because of health services and ethics which were facilitated by TMPs. There was also generally an average age at which one began to engage in sex that is why the spread of HIV was lower and transmission of STIs was manageable.
Sekuru Friday Chisanyu is the president of Zimbabwe National Practitioners Association.
