The “Relevance” of the African Traditional Medicine (Alternative Medicine) to Health Care Delivery System in Nigeria
This paper set out to examine the relevance of the African Traditional Medicine in Health Care Delivery Services in Nigeria. This has become necessary for three main reasons: Firstly, African Traditional Medicine Practitioners provided the earliest medical care in Nigeria. Secondly, the World Health Organisation has recognized the need to integrate the traditional medicine on the orthodox medicine when it defines it, as the total combination of knowledge and practices, whether explicable or not, used in diagnosing, preventing or eliminating physical, mental or social diseases. Thirdly, there are claims by the practitioners that since orthodox medicine cannot cure all diseases; hence, they can intervene in the areas where orthodox medicine is weak. Such areas include, social psychiatry, hypertension, diabetes, epilepsy and other psychosomatic illnesses. The researcher thus took a purposive sample of one hundred and fifty consisting of (50) traditional medicine practitioners, 50 orthodox medicine practitioners and 50 patients using interview and questionnaire administration to garner information on the relevance of traditional medicine in the Health Care Delivery system in Nigeria. Participant observation method was also used to reinforce the interview and questionnaire administration respectively. Secondary data were also obtained from the traditional medical clinics visited in Ibadan, Oyo, lIe-lfe and Ikire all in South Western Nigeria. Data collected were analysed descriptively and the findings are that: (i) African traditional medicine predated orthodox medicine in Nigeria; (ii) Traditional medical care is strong in some areas where the orthodox medicine is not very effective; (iii) There are problems associated with administration of traditional medical care such as issues of measurability of its drugs, dosage, preparation, documentation, preservation, potency and determination of the side effect and (iv) if the shortcomings are rectified, then, the African traditional medicine has a lot to offer in saving lives of African citizens and beyond the continent. The paper concluded that there is a need to properly integrate and blend African medicine on the orthodox medicine because such reinforcement will be of immense advantage to the sick and humanity in general.
Traditional medicine in China today: implications for indigenous health systems in a modern world.
In the United States, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is recognized by the National Institutes of Health as an effective complementary and alternative medicine modality, widely used by consumers and growing as a profession.1–3 Ironically, while TCM is expanding in the United States, it may be contracting in China as a result of dramatic health care reforms and changing cultural values. There is, however, little information in Western literature explicitly delineating the impacts of these forces on TCM. The purpose of this inquiry was to interview a sample of select respondents, particularly individuals from a major Chinese college of traditional medicine, regarding their perceptions of the field. The results provided insight into the survival and assimilation of indigenous health systems in a modern world. 
 
In the late 1970s, Deng Xiao Ping introduced elements of the market economy into China. During the 1990s, significant health care reforms were also initiated. These reforms placed a new emphasis on profitability, economic autonomy for health facilities, and decentralization of public health services and contributed to the demise of the rural cooperative medical system.4–6 These reforms also produced fundamental changes in health care financing, including replacing free universal health care with fee-for-service and private insurance strategies.4,7 This has contributed to increased medical care costs, higher out-of-pocket expenses, growing inequity in access, a reduction of prevention programs in poor areas, and pricing policies that encourage overprescribing drugs and high-tech services.4,7,8–10 As a significant percentage of all health care delivered in China is in the form of traditional treatments,11 such reforms will invariably affect this ancient healing system as well.
Complexities of Assessing the Disease Burden Attributable to Leishmaniasis
Among parasitic diseases, morbidity and mortality caused by leishmaniasis are surpassed only by malaria and lymphatic filariasis. However, estimation of the leishmaniasis disease burden is challenging, due to clinical and epidemiological diversity, marked geographic clustering, and lack of reliable data on incidence, duration, and impact of the various disease syndromes. Non-health effects such as impoverishment, disfigurement, and stigma add to the burden, and introduce further complexities. Leishmaniasis occurs globally, but has disproportionate impact in the Horn of Africa, South Asia and Brazil (for visceral leishmaniasis), and Latin America, Central Asia, and southwestern Asia (for cutaneous leishmaniasis). Disease characteristics and challenges for control are reviewed for each of these foci. We recommend review of reliable secondary data sources and collection of baseline active survey data to improve current disease burden estimates, plus the improvement or establishment of effective surveillance systems to monitor the impact of control efforts.