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#4: Africa’s Medicine Men Key to Halting Ebola Spread
As
the Ebola disease continues to claim the lives of many West Africans, doctors,
especially Western doctors, have been looking into ways in which they can
contain and kill the Ebola virus, preventing any future breakouts. However, the medicine men of Guinea say that
the Ebola outbreak could have ended long before it became a massive epidemic if
they had been included in the outbreak response. With Western medicine and its consistent
failure to produce a successful vaccine to fight against the virus, relying on
these traditional healers may be the best approach to end the epidemic. A medicine man, also called a Shaman, is an
individual that is believed to posses both spiritual and magical powers of
healing and seeing into the future. The
medicine men of Guinea claim that they have a potion or spell that can treat
aliments caused by Ebola as well as a cure to prevent future outbreaks. They also state that the cure for the disease
is knowledge. Medicine men utilize
various plant and animal species to treat the numerous symptoms of the Ebola
disease such as fatigue, fever, headache, vomiting, and diarrhea. With their immense knowledge and expertise on
medicinal plants, many Africans prefer to turn to a medicine man for the
treatment of illnesses rather than relying on Western medicine. Some medicine men have agreed to lend their
knowledge of healing to Western doctors; however, many are fearful of turning
Ebola into an industry.
I
believe that medicine men are very resourceful and many posses key knowledge on
how to end the horrible epidemic. For
many decades, anthropologists have been participating in field research in
order to study the culture of the Shamans/medicine men to help improve the
quality and potency of Western medicine.
They are known to utilize various plants, animals, and techniques that
are century’s years old to treat diseases such as diabetes, cancers, and other
illnesses. I believe that their
knowledge of healing should not be excluded from the outbreak response to the
Ebola epidemic. Medicine men may be able
to create a successful vaccine.
Brandon Smith
3/2/2015
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