Traditional medicines in Cameroon

WHO’s definition of traditional and complementary medicine is the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness.

WHO and its Member States cooperate to promote the use of traditional medicine for health care.

The collaboration aims to:

1. •Support and integrate traditional medicine into national health systems in combination with national policy and regulation for products, practices and providers to ensure safety and quality;
   

2. •Ensure the use of safe, effective and quality products and practices, based on available evidence;
   

3. •Acknowledge traditional medicine as part of primary health care, to increase access to care and preserve knowledge and resources; and
   

4. •Ensure patient safety by upgrading the skills and knowledge of traditional medicine providers.
   

Herbal medicines include herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations and finished herbal products, that contain as active ingredients parts of plants, or other plant materials, or combinations.

1. •Herbs: crude plant material such as leaves, flowers, fruit, seed, stems, wood, bark, roots, rhizomes or other plant parts, which may be entire, fragmented or powdered.
   

2. •Herbal materials: in addition to herbs, fresh juices, gums, fixed oils, essential oils, resins and dry powders of herbs. In some countries, these materials may be processed by various local procedures, such as steaming, roasting, or stir-baking with honey, alcoholic beverages or other materials.
   

3. •Herbal preparations: the basis for finished herbal products and may include comminuted or powdered herbal materials, or extracts, tinctures and fatty oils of herbal materials. They are produced by extraction, fractionation, purification, concentration, or other physical or biological processes. They also include preparations made by steeping or heating herbal materials in alcoholic beverages and/or honey, or in other materials.
   

4. •Finished herbal products: herbal preparations made from one or more herbs. If more than one herb is used, the term mixture herbal product can also be used. Finished herbal products and mixture herbal products may contain excipients in addition to the active ingredients. However, finished products or mixture products to which chemically defined active substances have been added, including synthetic compounds and/or isolated constituents from herbal materials, are not considered to be herbal.
   

Traditional use of herbal medicines

Traditional use of herbal medicines refers to the long historical use of these medicines. Their use is well established and widely acknowledged to be safe and effective, and may be accepted by national authorities.

Therapeutic activity

Therapeutic activity refers to the successful prevention, diagnosis and treatment of physical and mental illnesses; improvement of symptoms of illnesses; as well as beneficial alteration or regulation of the physical and mental status of the body.

Active ingredient

Active ingredients refer to ingredients of herbal medicines with therapeutic activity. In herbal medicines where the active ingredients have been identified, the preparation of these medicines should be standardized to contain a defined amount of the active ingredients, if adequate analytical methods are available. In cases where it is not possible to identify the active ingredients, the whole herbal medicine may be considered as one active ingredient.

BIMEHC’s founder Pa Tumenta Matthias Wambo started treating his patients with herbal medicines in the early sixties. He was not secretive and shared his knowledge; he trained his children who showed interest.  His successful treatment was his advertisement and theTraditional Home attracted patients from all over Cameroon and even abroad.

The staff has received training to improve on their knowledge on preparation and storage of medicinal medication.

Workshops have been held with partner organisation ANAMED and the facilitator and co-funder was Prof. Lantum, medical doctor and national census of traditional medicines.