.Dr Kasonde

By CHARITY MOONGA –

GOVERNMENT will soon introduce a law to regulate traditional healers in the country, Health Minister Joseph Kasonde has said.
Dr Kasonde told Parliament on Friday last week that his ministry was in the process of submitting to the House, a law to guide the operations of traditional healers.
He said most of the traditional healers’ prescribed medication was not quantified and Government wanted to among other things ensure that traditional medicine was also well packaged.
The new law would also regulate traditional healers on administering herbal medicine.
“Only when Government is satisfied will we introduce the traditional medicines in public institutions,” he said.
He was responding to a question from UPND Mwinilunga MP Steven Katuka who wanted to find out if Government was carrying out any herbal tests on the Zambian market.
Zambia had not carried out any herbal trials in the past four years.
The Traditional Healers and Practitioners Association of Zambia (THPAZ) has since welcomed the pronouncement.
THPAZ president Rodwell Vongo said in an interview that the traditional healing practice had been infiltrated by foreign healers and the introduction of the regulations would assist improve the profession.
“The last two years, foreign healers have been coming here tarnishing the credibility of the practice. We want our practice to be regulated and controlled to separate fake healers from the genuine ones,” he said.
Dr Vongo explained that unsuspecting members of the public were losing thousands of Kwacha paid to traditional healers who were not genuine.
Government was also losing on a lot of tax from foreign traditional healers due to the non-regulation of the profession.
He said some traditional healers had resorted to advertising their services which was illegal.