Throwing the bones to diagnose HIV: Views of rural South African traditional healers on undertaking HIV counselling and testing
Date
2022-10-10
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In 2018, nearly 800,000 HIV positive individuals in South Africa were unaware of their status.
Traditional healers see patients who avoid health clinics, including those who refuse HIV
testing. This manuscript details the results of a qualitative study to understand traditional healer
perspectives on performing healer-initiated HIV counseling and testing HIV in rural South Africa.
We conducted 30 structured in-depth, in-person interviews between April and June 2019 to
elicit traditional healer attitudes towards partnering with local health services to perform HIV
counseling and testing with their patients. Healers reported that while some patients are open
about their HIV status, others lie about it due to stigma around the disease. This creates challenges
with concurrent treatment, which healers believe leads to allopathic and/or traditional medication
treatment failure. Most healers expressed both an interest and a willingness to perform HIV
counseling and testing. Healers felt that by performing testing in the community, it would
overcome issues related to HIV stigma, as well as a lack of confidentiality and trust with health
care workers at the clinic. Trained traditional healers may be able to bridge the testing gap
between “non-testers” and the allopathic health system, essentially “opening” thousands of new
testing locations with little financial investment.