Current and future prospects of integrating traditional and alternative medicine in the management of diseases in Tanzania

Abstract

Traditional medicine and medicinal plants, in general, continue to be a powerful source of new drugs, now contributing about 90% of the newly discovered pharmaceuticals. Traditional medicine continues to provide health coverage for over 80% of the world population, especially in the developing world. The past and the present are all full of living examples of discoveries of drugs, ranging from anticancer, antiasthma, antidiabetic, antihypertensives and many others which owe their origin to traditional medicine. The current era of HIV/AIDS is not short of contributions from traditional medicine. The recent discovery of the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), calanolide A, is a new addition from traditional medicine. Many more such discoveries are yet to come. While this potential is much acknowledged, little has been done in African countries, to utilize the plants that are already known and proven to be safe for use by patients. A number of plants could be widely cultivated for local industrial production of medicines and herbal nutritional supplements. There is need to ensure that what is known is made use of, for financial gain, and for improvement of the health of our people. We need to establish the necessary expertise for development of traditional medicines and deliberate efforts should be made to encourage local industrial production of traditional/herbal medicines so that cultivation may become possible and hence contribute to poverty reduction.