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 From broken bones to impotence to madness, these traditional healers
say they have a potion, spell or touch for many ailments Western
doctors can't treat. But there's only one cure for Ebola they say:
knowledge.
In the forest region of southeastern Guinea, where the virus was
detected last March, disseminating information using modern
technology has proved challenging, resulting in the disease
outstaying its welcome.
Karamoko Ibrahima Fofana, president of the association of
traditional healers in the town of Macenta, said guérisseurs, as
they are known, have unique access to remote villages.
"Guérisseurs are often the first port of call for the sick," said
Fofana, 69, who is also an imam at the central mosque in Macenta, a
hot, dusty town carved out of the forest.
"We could have spread information on how to protect against Ebola or
told people with symptoms to seek help in the treatment centers."
Instead, the traditional healers were sometimes accused of spreading
the deadly virus. After all, it was the claim of a guérisseur in
Sierra Leone that she could cure Ebola that drew the first Guinean
victims across the border, Fofana recalled.
Ebola has infected more than 23,500 people in West Africa and killed
over 9,500, nearly all in the three worst-affected countries of
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It is transmitted through blood,
vomit, diarrhea and other bodily fluids.
Health officials are exploring ways to prevent similar disease
outbreaks around the world, with epidemics expected to be a focus at
a global conference on disaster risk reduction in Japan later this
month.
Fofana admits the guérisseurs in his association didn't know what
Ebola was at first, but after training from United Nations staff
they're keen to spread information - and not the virus.
"If a guérisseur has been trained on Ebola and is then caught
treating a suspected case, they are fined 50,000 GNF ($7), stripped
of their membership and reported to the police," he told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
WORD OF MOUTH
Jean Marie Dangou, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in
Guinea, said the "Stop Ebola" campaign based on modern communication
technology, had all but failed.
"For about one year the main communication strategy was built around
media, mainly radio and TV, but it wasn't successful. The country is
still dealing with tough and repetitive resistance," Dangou said.
West Africa has recorded some weekly declines in new confirmed cases
of Ebola since the start of 2015, but resistance in some communities
has undermined efforts to end the epidemic.
The main message from this outbreak is that communication must be
adapted to fit the local culture, Dangou said.
Word of mouth may be a better way of getting information out than
modern methods in parts of the world where broadcast signals are
weak and power for electrical appliances is scarce.
"Lessons learned from Ebola in Guinea can be applied to cholera,
malaria or any other infectious disease in other parts of the world
that rely on an oral tradition," Dangou added.
At the start of the outbreak, traditional healers were viewed as
part of the problem, rather than being recruited to help halt the
disease.
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"Our communication was top down and the way we delivered the
messages was wrong. We told people to stop doing things without
explaining why," Dangou told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In a shift in policy, community leaders, including healers, are
given information and asked to act on it as they see fit. As a
result, many have appropriated the "Stop Ebola" messages.
Traditional healers are also supplementing disease surveillance and
helping response teams that search for cases.
"Most traditional healers are now aware of the risk of treating
Ebola patients. More and more patients are coming to health
facilities after a referral from their healer," said Dangou.
A PRICE
Given their important role in efforts to stamp out Ebola, the
services of traditional healers should come at a price, said Joseph
Souro Mamadouno, 58, a Catholic guérisseur from Macenta.
"Ebola is here today, but it could be cholera tomorrow. We can
spread health messages, but the government should cover costs of
transport, food and the time we take off work," said Mamadouno, who
also works at the local agriculture school.
According to the healers' association, some 2,000 herbal
practitioners in Macenta, a district with a population of around
300,000 close to the Liberian border, are out of pocket as a result
of the Ebola response.
Ebola shares symptoms with less serious diseases traditional healers
say they can treat: fatigue, fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea.
But now these cases are referred to hospitals.
Koly Beavogui, 80, an animist traditional healer from Macenta said
she and other female guérisseurs have been reduced to begging for
food from neighbors and foraging in the forest.
The scrawny woman, with a wrinkled face and toothless smile, used to
treat five to six people a day, but now hardly sees anyone.
"When the sick come to see me, I only ask them to give me whatever
they can afford, because we don't buy illness, so we shouldn't have
to pay for treatments," said Beavogui, sitting outside her
freshly-swept, mudbrick house.
But others are fearful of turning Ebola into an industry.
"I'm not in favor of incentives, because it looks like we are in an
Ebola business. These people should become agents of change, in
their own community, without any kind of payment," the WHO's Dangou
said.
(Reporting by Misha Hussain; Editing by Ros Russell)
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