Archived Bulletins

Traditional Medicine: An Answer to Ghana's Economic Woes?

By Yawa Osebreh
Class of 2006

After signing up for Professor Patrick Twumasi’s Traditional Medicine course last semester, I was not really sure what to expect. I’m really glad I decided to take the course. I think the most important thing I learned from this course is that it is never right to judge the things people do simply because they are not “modern”.

Our class took a very enlightening trip to the Mampong Center for Research into Plant Medicine.  During the trip we learned alot about the wealth of plant resources found in Ghana. Officials at the Center lamented the stigma many educated Ghanaians associate with the use of traditional herbal remedies. In China for example, 40% of health care delivered is through traditional medicines. It must also be remembered that some 25% of modern medicines are descended from plants first used in traditional medicine. There are numerous cases of how indigenous knowledge is discarded after centuries of healthy practice, and replaced by "modern medicine", which are often culturally unsuitable for peoples’ needs.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently unveiled its first Global Strategy for Traditional and Complementary Alternative Medicine. WHO intends to integrate traditional medicine into national health systems around the globe. This creates an opportunity for building safe, affordable and effective national health systems, especially for Third World countries like Ghana that are rich in both medicinal plant resources and traditional knowledge. The Global Strategy also seeks to encourage governments to fund research into holistic health models.

The global market for Traditional Medicine stands at US$60 billion, with UK’s expenditure at about US$2.3 billion per year.  There promises to be a steady rise in the demand for Traditional medicine in the years ahead. This is a good reason for every Business Students to have to take a course in Traditional Medicine! Ghana should gear herself up to exploit the potential of the global market for traditional medicine.

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