Africa's medicine men key to halting Ebola spread in Guinea

REUTERS   by Misha Hussain                                                                                     March 2, 2015

MACENTA, Guinea  - In a land where witchcraft is sought after more than science for curing illness, medicine men in Guinea say the Ebola epidemic would be over by now if they had been properly included in the outbreak response.

From broken bones to impotence to madness, these traditional healers say they have a potion, spell or touch for many ailments Western doctors can't treat. But there's only one cure for Ebola they say: knowledge....

Karamoko Ibrahima Fofana, president of the association of traditional healers in the town of Macenta, said guérisseurs, as they are known, have unique access to remote villages.

"Guérisseurs are often the first port of call for the sick," said Fofana, 69, who is also an imam at the central mosque in Macenta, a hot, dusty town carved out of the forest.

         A health worker checks the temperature of a boy at the entrance to a Red Cross  facility in the town of Koidu, Kono district in Eastern Sierra Leone Decmber 19, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

"We could have spread information on how to protect against Ebola or told people with symptoms to seek help in the treatment centres."

Instead, the traditional healers were sometimes accused of spreading the deadly virus....        

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http://news.yahoo.com/africas-medicine-men-key-halting-ebola-spread-guinea-071214581.html;_ylt=AwrBEiKgW_RUsX4AfMDQtDMD