Mali's traditional healers unlock herbal cures

BAMAKO, Nov 30 (Reuters) Bourama Soumaoro's pharmacy looks much like any other, packets of pills in glass cabinets and jars of powder to fight everything from toothache to dysentery.

But nowhere in the doctor's small shop in Mali's capital Bamako is there a chemically manufactured drug.

Soumaoro's remedies are made exclusively from ground-up local plants, the exact mixture based on knowledge passed down through the generations by traditional village healers.

''Culturally, we're born into traditional medicine rather than Western medicine. From being babies, our mothers take us to traditional healers to clean us and cure us with plants,'' Soumaoro told Reuters.

''The story of modern medicine is foreign to our culture.'' The World Health Organisation estimates some 80 per cent of Africans rely on traditional medicine from the cradle to the grave. There is just one conventional doctor per 25,000 people compared to a traditional healer for every 200 in some areas.

Traditional knowledge is often extremely localised.

A village in Mali's southeastern Sikasso region is said to be the only one in the country to possess an anti-venom powder to treat snake bites, a cure which Mali's Association of Traditional Healers says is recognised by medical doctors.

One bush used to treat malaria by Mali's Dogon people, who live in mud-brick villages nestled along the Bandiagara escarpment near Burkina Faso, is found only within 100 km of their cliff dwellings, scientists say.

''Malaria is one of the most common illnesses in Mali and modern medicine has so far proved to be ineffective (in curing it),'' said Soumaoro. ''Traditional medicine at least finds solutions to relieve the symptoms.'' EXAMPLE TO AFRICA Mali's government is one of few in Africa to formally recognise the benefits of traditional healers. Its scientists test the healers' methods and give them a seal of approval.

''This system is unique in Africa and is said by many to be a model for the rest of the developing countries that rely on traditional medicine,'' said Berit Smestad Paulsen, a professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Oslo, Norway.

More Reuters AKJ DS1050