Universal Health Care Coverage Analysis

Since the 1970s, there has been a near consensus between the public health community and international health stakeholders such as the World Health Organization (WHO) that Universal Health Care Coverage should be a fundamental goal (Backman 2009, Frenk 2009). The WHO Alma Ata conference in 1975, in the former Soviet Union saw traditional medicine as a vital resource in achieving this goal. Delegates in this conference saw traditional medicine in combination with Primary Health Care as the needed resource in achieving universal health coverage for all people by the year 2000. However, this aim is yet to be realized as it has been 12 years since the intended target year. Base on the premise on WHO which saw and still sees traditional medicine

It is based on indigenous theories, beliefs and experiences that are handed down from generation to generation (WHO 2000).The WHO defines traditional medicine as the “health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs in co-operating plant, animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses and maintain well-being” (WHO 2001, p1). It is part of the cultural heritage of most societies in the developing world as well as the developed world. However, the latter may have lost or evolved over time its traditional medicine leading to it embracing scientific or modern medicine. Thus, most traditional systems of medicine have evolved as part of a particular culture and lifestyle (WHO, 2001).Although traditional medicine is practiced in many countries especially in the developing world, it has not always been included as part of the health system recognized by the government in most of these countries, hence it has received little or no

This theory holds that an illness is due to infection by a single microbe ultimately culminating in a specific clinical disease. This disease, in turn, may be cured by administering a contrary medicine such as an antibiotic which restores health through microbial killing. Modern medicine uses rational explanation of natural events in terms of cause and effect. The cause here is held as natural which is the germ and this microorganism is responsible for illnesses and diseases. The germ theory of disease, also called the pathogenic theory of medicine, is a theory that proposes that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases. Although highly controversial when first proposed, the germ theory was validated in the late 19th century and is now a fundamental part of modern medicine and clinical microbiology leading to such important innovations as antibiotics and hygienic practices. According to Louis Pasteur, germs or microbes cause disease and these germs invade the body from the outside through air, water or the food that we take in. The human blood is sterile and can only be infected by outside microbes; these germs are monomorphic, that is, they have only one form and can be identified by species. Thus, specific diseases are caused by specific germs. This theory led to the development of pharmaceutical drugs that can kill these germs or