Healers are key to containing uncontrollable epidemic in Mozambique – Researcher

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Healers are key to containing uncontrollable epidemic in Mozambique – Researcher

1:23 CAT | 30 Mar 2020

Researcher Paulo Granjo on Sunday suggested to Lusa that Mozambique should take advantage of its network of healers to promote social isolation measures against Covid-19, while warning that, if the pandemic reaches rural areas, it will be uncontrollable.

“Mozambique must pay all the necessary social isolation costs under the very difficult conditions in which people have to survive, especially in cities, where the morphology is very concentrated, and for convincing the population [to accept social isolation], it is crucial that it is not only the state which speaks, but also talks to the huge network of healers that exists in the country,” the researcher from the Lisbon Institute of Social Sciences said.

In an interview with Lusa about the possible effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mozambique, Granjo warned that “the state must educate healers about what is at stake, and mobilise them as the most effective people to convince the population about the seriousness of what could happen”.

Granjo, who has been studying Mozambique for 30 years, said it was imperative that the state promote “all possible forms of social isolation to prevent the spread of the epidemic, because if it spreads it will become uncontrollable, and there is no way to respond to it, because the countries that would normally help are themselves having problems, and even removing people from embassies [in Maputo]”.

“There is absolutely no capacity for the health system to respond to an epidemic if it becomes widespread, not even in big cities and much less in rural districts, where health centres are open only during office hours and routinely without water and electricity, and without doctors, with only nurses,” Granjo said.

“If it spreads to rural areas, I fear it will be an uncontrollable catastrophe,” he concludes. “Mozambique has to invest everything in social isolation to prevent the epidemic from spreading, and above all to extend [the strategy] into areas where the capacity to respond in terms of health is lowest.”

By Saturday, Mozambique had detected eight cases of Covid-19 infection.

Source: Lusa