**5.2. Zambia**

The first principle is diagnosis followed by complex treatment procedures using plants from the bush, followed by many rituals, the ultimate aim being to cure disease. Serious or chronic illnesses require "chizimba," which means sealing a disease or illness away forever. This involves killing a lizard and burning the heart with roots of certain trees and grinding with charcoal. Tiny cuts are made on the ailing area and left breast and the mixture rubbed into the cuts.

Plants may be used singly or in combination with other plants. The plant parts are harvested fresh, pulverized, and left to dry first, then soaked in water or other solvents like local gin. Some plant materials are burnt as charcoal and used as powder. Six major types of treatment common to the 72 or more ethnic groups in Zambia include drinking, eating, drinking as porridge, making small cut on skin and applying, bathing with herbs, dancing to exorcize spirits, and steaming with boiling herbs. The Zambian traditional healer is called *Nga:nga* [45].

#### **5.3. Tanzania**

In Tanzania, traditional medicine has been practiced separately from allopathic medicine since colonial period but is threatened by lack of documentation, coupled with the decline of biodiversity in certain localities due to the discovery of natural resources and excessive mining, climate change, urbanization, and modernization of agriculture. Traditional medicine in Tanzania is used by people of all ages in both urban and rural areas for both simple and chronic diseases. The traditional healers are of four different types: diviners, herbalists, traditional birth attendants, and bone setters. Erosion of indigenous medical knowledge occurred as most of the traditional health practitioners were aging and dying, and the expected youths who would inherit the practice were shying away from it and those in the rural areas dying of AIDS. Another constraint to the development of traditional medicine in Tanzania was lack of data on seriously threatened or endangered medicinal plant species [46]. As it stands today, the traditional medical practice is under the Ministry of health. Efforts are being made to scale up traditional medical practice by creating awareness of the importance of traditional medicine and medicinal plants in health care and training of traditional health practitioners on good practice, conservation, and sustainable harvesting [47].
