Traditional Healer-initiated HIV Counseling and Testing in South Africa

Traditional healers see patients who avoid allopathic health services, including those who refuse HIV testing. Patients report a general preference for traditional healers, given their fluency in local language, the length of time they spend with patients, the respect they show patients, the cultural congruity to their diagnosis, and their proximity to the patients. Reports of poor treatment by health care providers are common in SSA, often resulting in patients refusing or delaying allopathic health services and/or seeking alternative health services. Men, immigrants, and those with low SES most frequently report poor treatment at the health facility or report that the health system is not designed for their needs. People who first visit a traditional healer for HIV-associated symptoms before seeking an HIV test are delayed 2.4 times longer in seeking health services than those who do not. Among patients enrolled in HIV care and treatment, a preference for traditional medicine impacts their treatment decisions: patients who report use of both traditional and allopathic services are 45% less likely to enroll in antiretroviral therapy (ART) services.

Healers are respected members of their communities, play an integral role as informal referral agents to the South African health system, and act as supportive providers to patients living with chronic disease, if effectively engaged. In rural South Africa, traditional healers provide physical and psychological services to >80% of the population. There are more than 200,000 traditional healers in South Africa, but only 46,000 registered physicians (> 20:1 ratio) who provide services for a myriad of disease conditions, including HIV, TB, malaria, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and depression. Given the level of trust in the community and the numbers of healers, partnerships may facilitate diagnosis and linkage to care via the creation of unique testing locations. It is up to researchers and health care providers to overcome our own biases and/or prejudices against this workforce to develop an effective strategy to increase testing uptake.

Traditional healers can bridge the testing gap between "non-testers" and the allopathic health system. Traditional healers have been successfully engaged in health systems to promote care linkage among people living with diabetes, TB, HIV, malaria, and mental illness- many of whom initially did not believe in their allopathic diagnosis until a healer convinced them that their condition was not caused by a curse. Those who are hesitant to test need a trusted and culturally concordant provider (traditional healer) to both vouch for and deliver the HIV test, and the same provider to create a bridge to the allopathic health facility, providing a metaphorical "safe space" for the patient while they transition to HIV care. Traditional healers are strongly motivated to play this role for two reasons: (1) Better patient health outcomes are strongly correlated with perceived quality of traditional healer care. Healers do not want to be associated with high levels of morbidity or mortality, as it is bad for business; and (2) Healers are excited at expanding their public health services. As allopathic medical knowledge is disseminated, healer views on disease causation are expanding to include the germ theory of disease. Patients are open to this partnership, given their inclination to ping-pong between the two systems depending on their needs.