Shingles (Herpes zoster) is a virus associated with the chicken pox virus. Once a person has had chicken pox, the virus can retreat to the nerve roots in the lower back and reside there. Usually the virus is held in check by a healthy immune system, but from time to time, and especially when a person is run down, the activated virus may overcome the immune system and causes to severe irritation to the skin. The virus is a particular problem for HIV patients who have compromised immune systems and therefore are more vulnerable to the virus.

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Studies at the Department of Medicine of Mulago Hospital, Makerere University, and at The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) Clinic, providing primary care to people living with HIV and AIDS carried out a two phase study in HIV patients who had recently suffered a herpes zoster attack.

During phase 1, fifty-two patients were treated, and followed for up to 3 months at the three healers' clinics. This was compared to 52 TASO Clinic patients receiving mobility care. Phase 2 of the study was carried out for 6 months and involved 154 hospital outpatients treated with herbal medicine and 55 patients from TASO Clinic. In both phases, all the healer patients were given herbal treatment according to the healers' prescriptions, while the others received either symptomatic treatment or the drug acyclovir.

The results revealed that those patients taking the herbal remedies experienced a similar rate of success in the alleviation of their symptoms as those who received conventional treatment. However, in phase 1, only 18 per cent of patients taking herbal remedies experienced a superinfection (where the condition re-errupts severely), compared with 42 per cent of those patients who did not take herbal medicines. Those patients taking herbal remedies also found that the associated pain resolved significantly faster and they also showed less keloid formation or scarring in either phase.

The report suggests that herbal treatment offers an important local and affordable primary care alternative for the management of herpes zoster in HIV-infected patients in Uganda and that it would prove effective if used in similar settings.