PERUVIAN TRADITIONAL MEDICINE AND POPULAR PRACTICES IN TIMES OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

On January 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Importance (ESPII), constituting the organization's highest level of alert. The outbreak of the virus surprised the social structure of various communities that did not understand the behavior of the new disease, but could try to combat it with the daily and popular practices of traditional medicine. Peru is located in the Andean region and has three markedly different regions: coast, mountains and jungle. Each region has different customs and beliefs, deeply rooted in traditional medicine and various popular practices. In the remote areas of each region, the presence of healers and midwives is notorious, who provide empirical health services, often being the first people with whom the inhabitants come into contact, before going to a health establishment, to try to solve some problem. health problem. The arrival of the new coronavirus had a significant impact on society and the lack of specific treatment for the disease complicated the situation. In the remote areas of the country, the uncertainty was greater and a large part of the inhabitants chose to believe more in traditional medicine and empirical popular practices, than in the sanitary measures decreed for the prevention of the disease. These positions adopted by the population to deal with the pandemic were little or not at all effective and some of the practices only aggravated the situation of people infected with the disease. Faced with such a situation, the challenge of new health policies that dialogue with these social behaviors in order to reduce the impact of diseases and promote the use of health services becomes evident. Thus, the objective of this work is to identify the most common practices of traditional medicine in times of Covid-19 and how they should be understood by health management, taking into account that policies must be inclusive and open to the dialogue of knowledge. The essay will be approached descriptively through qualitative research and the methodological instruments of bibliographic, videographic and documentary research will be used.