If Zambia can modernise currency settlement to match new trade realities, we can also modernise health by integrating evidence-based holistic care that is regulated, researched, and designed for today’s diseases, not yesterday’s myths. That line stayed with me after a recent conversation about Zambia accepting mining payments in yuan. Most of the public discussion focused on economics, which makes sense.
Sovereignty, pragmatism, shifting global power. But beneath that debate sat a quieter question that felt just as important.If we are capable of rethinking how money moves across borders, why do we find it so difficult to rethink how health works? This is not a call to abandon science.
Quite the opposite. It is a call to stop assuming that science only arrives in one form, from one place, or through one system of authority. In Zambia, as in many parts of the world, healthcare thinking is still shaped by older models.
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Western medicine is treated as the gold standard of modernity. Everything else is often dismissed as outdated, unsafe, or unserious. Yet the reality inside our clinics tells a different story.
The most pressing health challenges today are not acute infections alone. They are chronic, lifestyle-driven conditions. Hypertension.
Chronic pain. Stress-related illness. At the same time, the global health landscape has moved on.
China, in particular, is often misunderstood in these conversations. When people hear “Chinese medicine,” they imagine herbs, folk remedies, or outdated practices. What is missed is that China’s major shift has not been about tradition for tradition’s sake.
It has been about building large-scale health systems that combine technology, prevention, and daily disease management. Modern Chinese healthcare increasingly relies on health technology, remote monitoring, digital platforms, and data-driven prevention. Continuous glucose monitoring, telemedicine, AI-supported diagnostics, and hospital-at-home models are not side projects.
They are core infrastructure. Lifestyle interventions such as movement, nutrition, and stress regulation are treated as measurable health inputs, not wellness trends. This matters because similar changes are already appearing in Zambia, quietly and without much discussion.
Speak to people managing diabetes today and you will notice that Chinese-made glucose monitoring sensors are becoming more common. Often they are more accessible than long-established Western brands. This is not ideology at work.
It is cost, availability, and supply chains. In a system where most healthcare is paid for out of pocket, affordability shapes behaviour. The parallel with the yuan decision is hard to ignore.
Zambia did not accept yuan to make a cultural statement. It did so because global trade realities changed. Health is facing a similar moment.
Non-communicable diseases now dominate Zambia’s burden of illness. They require daily management, not occasional rescue. They demand monitoring, movement, nutrition, and behaviour change.
Technology makes this possible at scale. Pretending otherwise keeps us locked into a reactive healthcare model built for a different era.
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