Reconciling the Irreconcilable? HIV/AIDS and the Potential for Middle Ground Between the Traditional and Biomedical Healthcare Sectors in South Africa

Abstract

This article analyses, from a policymaking perspective, the continued recourse to South Africa's thriving traditional healthcare sector, which operates in tandem with the country's relatively well-developed biomedical healthcare sector. It considers the traditional healthcare sector's potential to impact on orthodox approaches to the treatment and management of HIV/AIDS, including the uptake of antiretroviral therapy. It highlights the urgent necessity of more thorough engagement between the traditional and biomedical sectors, particularly where supernatural elements – an integral part of much traditional diagnosis and treatment – are concerned. The challenge for policymakers is how best to facilitate an effective means of meaningfully accommodating potentially conflicting traditional cosmologies within the formal healthcare infrastructure. However, although the achievement of this would represent a vital step towards a more effective overall approach to South Africa's HIV/AIDS pandemic, this article queries whether it is indeed feasible.