Last month Georgina Kekea writing in the Solomon Times Online told how many individuals on Wagina said their recovery from COVID-19 was because of herbal treatment.
Quote
Without proper healthcare facilities and a rundown clinic, people are left to fend for themselves the best way they can.
Wagina is almost 300km away from Honiara. The island does not have any internet services. The network service there is still on 2G but is sometimes unreliable.
Wagina became one of the first rural communities in Choiseul province to record positive cases of COVID-19 when the community transmission was detected in Solomon Islands.
"I was so scared when I heard that Wagina now has COVID-19. When I heard who the people were, I grew more scared because I was in contact with them recently and now feared for my own life" says Andrew.
59 year old Andrew lives on the island of Peniamina. Peniamina is about a 15 minute boat ride from Wagina. It is well-known in the area for seaweed farming.
Andrew said he contracted the virus at the peak of its transmission in Wagina.
"I was swabbed and tested positive for the virus. After being swabbed they told me to remain in my house and not to mix with people in the community. I was expecting more but they did not give me any medicine.
"After hearing on the radio the number of people that continued to die from COVID-19, I was so scared. I thought that I would not survive this sickness because I have underlying conditions. My wife gave me all sorts of plant juice for me to drink. Even for the steam, she threw in all sorts of leaves for me to breathe with. It was most traumatising for me", Andrew said.
Andrew said his experience in contracting COVID-19 was the worst experience ever.
"I think because of the news and death messages I heard on the radio daily, I also got affected by it. With my condition and how they were saying that vulnerable people are those with underlying conditions, I almost lost it", he said.
But luckily enough for him, he was fully vaccinated. He said he did not want to take any chances since COVID-19 is the cause of death for a lot of people globally.
Thomas, a seaweed farmer on another island in the Wagina area, also shared the same sentiments.
He said he and his family moved to the island when the virus was detected in their community but they might not have escaped the virus. He said they later developed COVID like symptoms.
“We experienced symptoms like loss of smell, taste and headache. We also took herbal treatment and it worked for us. Now we are fine", Thomas said.
On another note, Ana, another resident in Wagina says COVID also brought with it a bright side.
"Now we are planting cassava, potato and cabbages. We have to be prepared in case we face food shortages in the future. We do not want to relive what has happened during the lockdown when we have to dig 'wild swamp taro' (kakake) to sustain us when we experience food shortages".
She said they have come to realise that they cannot rely on goods bought from the shops for their daily upkeep. She said from then on, she and her husband decided to concentrate on gardening, while their children work on their seaweed farm.
"The herbal treatment really worked for us. Now people are going about their business as usual. Work has to go on and people need to make a living and find food for their families', Ana said.
The herbal treatment the islanders used are what is known as beach cabbage or scaevola taccada. The plant is often used as medicine by the peoples of the Pacific. In Indonesia, the roots of the plant are used as an antidote to eating poisonous crabs and fish.
While there is less research done on the plant, islanders usually use the plant leaves to treat indigestion, treat coughs, pneumonia and tuberculosis. The plant has many other uses as well.
Wagina Area Health Centre has been run down for some time already. It only provides basic health care services and does not have the capacity to deal with an influx of COVID-19 patients.
End of quote.
Source. Solomon Times Online.
The apparent success of the traditional herbal medicine used in Wagina to ward off Covid-19 opens up for me the idea of having research into how traditional medicine might be incorporated as part of the national health care system.
I will explain my thinking on this.
Traditional medicine refers to health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses or maintain well-being.
In the last decade traditional medicine has become very popular in Cameroon, partly due to the long unsustainable economic situation in the country. The high cost of drugs and increase in drug resistance to common diseases like malaria, bacteria infections and other sexually transmitted diseases has caused the therapeutic approach to alternative traditional medicine as an option for concerted search for new chemical entities (NCE).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Cameroon Government has put in place a strategic platform for the practice and development of TM in Cameroon. This platform aims at harmonizing the traditional medicine practice in the country, create a synergy between TM and modern medicine and to institutionalize a more harmonized integrated TM practices
In Cameroon an overview of the practice of TM past, present and future perspectives that underpins the role in sustainable poverty alleviation has been discussed. This study gave an insight into the strategic plan and road map set up by the Government of Cameroon for the organisational framework and research platform for the practice and development of TM, and the global partnership involving the management of TM in the country.
The lack of health care systems in rural areas ( very much the situation prevailing today in the Solomon Islands) forces local people to treat themselves, either by using medicinal plants or by buying high-cost medicine in the rural markets, or still further, going for cheap road side medication, predisposing themselves to health dangers
In the rural areas, as a whole, people begin by treating themselves before going to a traditional practitioner or a modern doctor.
Medicinal plants are used at an early stage of the disease at low cost and conveniently replace the indiscriminate consumption of drugs without prescription.
Comment
Traditional medicine occupies a very important place in health care in the world in general, in Africa and Cameroon in particular: In Cameroon the process to effectively develop TM is in progress due to a favourable integrated environmental, national and international framework set up by the Government.
Should the Solomon Islands Government explore establishing the necessary institutional and financial support to promote the potential role of herbal medicine in primary health care delivery?
Priority could given to the development of herbal medicinal plants and herbs which could be used to treat diseases , including many of the common illnesses seen in the Si today, including malaria, intestional illneess, hear problems, cancer and many more.
If source a course was followed by the Government in collaboration with the WHO, it would necessitate establishing local botanical gardens for the preservation of essential medicinal herbal plants from different parts of the country, in order to ensure a sustainable supply of safe, effective and affordable medicinal herbs; -setting up testing laboratories with adequate facilities for the assessment of the efficacy of medicinal herbs, and establishing dosage norms for the proper administration.
It seems the Cameroonian society is out to fight poverty by exploring the natural environment, and research focused on the use of plants for the welfare for all. Could not the Solomon Islands do much of the same?
With reference to the Cameroon Ministry of Public Health.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
