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Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability or evidence of effectiveness. Unlike modern medicine, which employs the scientific method to test plausible therapies by way of responsible and ethical clinical trials, producing repeatable evidence of either effect or of no effect, alternative therapies reside outside of mainstream medicine and do not originate from using the scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials, anecdotes, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural "energies", pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Frequently used terms for relevant practices are New Age medicine, pseudo-medicine, unorthodox medicine, holistic medicine, fringe medicine, and unconventional medicine, with little distinction from quackery.
Muthi is a traditional medicine practice in Southern Africa as far north as Lake Tanganyika.
Traditional healers of Southern Africa are practitioners of traditional African medicine in Southern Africa. They fulfill different social and political roles in the community like divination, healing physical, emotional, and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witchcraft and narrating the history, cosmology, and concepts of their tradition.
Herbal medicine is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remedies, such as the anti-malarial group of drugs called artemisinin isolated from Artemisia annua, a herb that was known in Chinese medicine to treat fever. There is limited scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy of many plants used in 21st-century herbalism, which generally does not provide standards for purity or dosage. The scope of herbal medicine sometimes include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.
The University of KwaZulu-Natal is a university with five campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was formed on 1 January 2004 after the merger between the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville.
Cannabis tea is a cannabis-infused drink prepared by steeping various parts of the cannabis plant in hot or cold water. Cannabis tea is commonly recognized as an alternative form of preparation and consumption of the cannabis plant, more popularly known as marijuana, pot, or weed. This plant has long been recognized as an herbal medicine employed by health professionals worldwide to ease symptoms of disease, as well as a psychoactive drug used recreationally and in spiritual traditions. Though less commonly practiced than popular methods like smoking or consuming edibles, drinking cannabis tea can produce comparable physical and mental therapeutic effects. Such effects are largely attributed to the THC and CBD content of the tea, levels of which are drastically dependent on individual preparation techniques involving volume, amount of cannabis, and boiling time. Also in common with these administration forms of cannabis is the heating component performed before usage. Due to the rather uncommon nature of this particular practice of cannabis consumption in modern times as well as the legality of cannabis throughout the World, the research available on the composition of cannabis tea is limited and based broadly around what is known of cannabis as it exists botanically.
Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa was a Zulu sangoma from South Africa. He was known as an author of books that draw upon African mythology, traditional Zulu folklore, extraterrestrial encounters and his own personal encounters. His last work was a graphic novel called the Tree of Life Trilogy based on his writings of his most famous book, Indaba my Children. In 2018 he was honoured with an USIBA award presented by the South African Department of Arts and Culture, for his work in Indigenous Wisdom.
HIV/AIDS is one of the most serious health concerns in South Africa. The country has the highest number of people afflicted with HIV of any country, and the fourth-highest adult HIV prevalence rate, according to the 2019 United Nations statistics.
Alternative cancer treatment describes any cancer treatment or practice that is not part of the conventional standard of cancer care. These include special diets and exercises, chemicals, herbs, devices, and manual procedures. Most alternative cancer treatments do not have high-quality evidence supporting their use and many have been described as fundamentally pseudoscientific. Concerns have been raised about the safety of some purported treatments and some have been found unsafe in clinical trials. Despite this, many untested and disproven treatments are used around the world.
In Ayurvedic medicine rasaśāstra(रसशास्त्र), refers to processes by which various metals, minerals and other substances, including most notably mercury, are purified and combined with herbs in an attempt to treat illnesses. Rasashastra is a pharmaceutical branch of Indian system of medicine which mainly deals with the metals, minerals, product of animal origin, toxic herbs and their use in therapeutics.
Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77000 years ago to 38000 years ago.
Traditional African medicine is a range of traditional medicine disciplines involving indigenous herbalism and African spirituality, typically including diviners, midwives, and herbalists. Practitioners of traditional African medicine claim, largely without evidence, to be able to cure a variety of diverse conditions including cancer, psychiatric disorders, high blood pressure, cholera, most venereal diseases, epilepsy, asthma, eczema, fever, anxiety, depression, benign prostatic hyperplasia, urinary tract infections, gout, and healing of wounds and burns and Ebola.
Hlabisa is a settlement in Umkhanyakude District Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The village lies between the Hluhluwe and Umfolozi game reserves, some 40 km north-west of Mtubatuba. It is named after the Hlabisa tribe of Zulus, and also known as kwaHlabisa.
Salim S. Abdool Karim, MBChB, MMed, MS(Epi), FFPHM, FFPath (Virol), DipData, PhD, DSc(hc), FRS is a South African public health physician, epidemiologist and virologist who has played a leading role in the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemic. His scientific contributions have impacted the landscape of HIV prevention and treatment, saving thousands of lives.
Ubhejane is a South African herbal medicine marketed as a treatment for HIV/AIDS, reportedly the most popular alternative medicine treatment for the disease in South Africa. It was invented by former truck driver Zeblon Gwala, who has claimed that he got the idea for it in a dream. Gwala advises his patients to take ubhejane instead of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), saying that while both ubhejane and ARVs work, ubhejane, unlike ARVs, does not have side effects. The price at which ubhejane was sold has been reported variously at $25 and $50 US dollars.
Andrew John Ross is a family medicine specialist at UKZN, and is the founder and a trustee of Umthombo Youth Development Foundation (UYDF) which has produced more than 135 graduates in 16 different health science disciplines.
Hoosen Mahomed Coovadia was a South African doctor, and Victor Daitz professor at University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Bruce D. Walker is an American physician and scientist whose infectious disease research has produced many findings regarding HIV/AIDS. He became interested in studying HIV/AIDS after practicing on the front lines of the epidemic in the early 1980s, prior to the identification of HIV as the etiologic agent and prior to the availability of viable treatment options.
Suzanne Maman is a social scientist who is trained in public health and serving as a professor in the Department of Human Behavior at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and an associate dean for global health at the University's Gillings School. Maman also serves as UNC faculty director at the Duke-UNC Rotary Peace Center. Her specific research interests concern HIV/AIDS among women.
Stametta is a brand-name commercial herbal mixture sold in South Africa that is advertised as an "immune booster". Stametta has also been provided to women seeking a self-induced abortion. One of the ingredients may be aloe.
References
- ↑ Peltzer, K; Friend-du Preez, N; Ramlagan, S; Fomundam, H; Anderson, J; Chanetsa, L (2011). "Antiretrovirals and the use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine by HIV patients in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: a longitudinal study". African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines. 8 (4): 337–345. doi:10.4314/ajtcam.v8i4.1. ISSN 0189-6016. PMC 3218455 . PMID 22654209.
- ↑ Gerdts, Caitlin; Raifman, Sarah; Daskilewicz, Kristen; Momberg, Mariette; Roberts, Sarah; Harries, Jane (December 2017). "Women's experiences seeking informal sector abortion services in Cape Town, South Africa: a descriptive study". BMC Women's Health. 17 (1): 95. doi: 10.1186/s12905-017-0443-6 . ISSN 1472-6874. PMC 5625615 . PMID 28969631.
- ↑ Schmidt, Barbara M.; Cheng, Diana M. Klaser (2017-07-25). Ethnobotany: A Phytochemical Perspective. John Wiley & Sons. p. 171. ISBN 978-1-118-96191-9.
- 1 2 Ndhlala, A.R.; Stafford, G.I.; Finnie, J.F.; Van Staden, J. (October 2011). "Commercial herbal preparations in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: The urban face of traditional medicine". South African Journal of Botany. 77 (4): 830–843. doi:10.1016/j.sajb.2011.09.002.