Medicinal plants used in the treatment of Malaria: A key emphasis to Artemisia, Cinchona, Cryptolepis, and Tabebuia genera
Can medicinal plants help in the treatment of malaria?
Malaria is one of the life-threatening parasitic diseases that is endemic in tropical areas. The increased prevalence of malaria due to drug resistance leads to a high incidence of mortality. ... Medicinal plants used in the treatment of Malaria: A key emphasis to Artemisia, Cinchona, Cryptolepis, and Tabebuia genera Phytother Res. 2020 Jul;34 ...
How do traditional healers treat malaria?
Apr 12, 2017 · After testing all the selected plants for their antimalarial efficacy, we found the following six plant species to have the highest potential. *Azadirachta indica *Fagaropsis angolensis *Rhus...
Can magnolia trees help fight malaria?
Mar 21, 2022 · Medicinal plants have been used in the treatment and prevention of malaria in various parts of the world. Quinine extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree, was used as an antimalarial agent as early as 1632 (Baird et al., 1996) and by the 19 th century, it was still the only known antimalarial agent. Cinchona tree has been cultivated for ...
Is there an alternative treatment for malaria due to drug resistance?
Results: In total, 28 plants from 16 plant families are used by the healers who manage malaria with medicinal plants. The most cited plant is Cassia abbreviata Oliv. (Leguminosae) followed by Aristolochia albida Duch (Aristolociaceae) and Toddalia asiatica (L.) Lam. (Rutaceae). Roots (55.3%) are the most common part used.
What plant is used for malaria?
For centuries people have used their knowledge about the environment to treat various ailments. For example, the Chinese herbalists have used extracts of the Qinghao plant; Artemisia annua also known as sweet wormwood for malaria treatment for over 1,500 years.
Why do people in Africa use medicinal plants?
Most communities heavily rely on medicinal plants to prevent and treat diseases. About 80% of people in Africa depend on traditional medicine. Traditional healers prescribe medicinal plants to treat various illnesses. These plants are an accessible and affordable form of treatment for communities across the continent.
Why are medicinal plants important?
Medicinal plants have ingredients that can treat a condition or disease or can be used to manufacture useful drugs. Herbal medicines are an important part of culture and traditions all over the continent and beyond. For centuries people have used their knowledge about the environment to treat various ailments.
Where does quinine come from?
For example quinine, an antimalarial, comes from the medicinal plant Cinchona succirubra. Artemisinin is derived from Artemisia annua, another medicinal plant. These previous successes underscores the importance of medicinal plants in ...
Where are Siaya plants found?
The areas included Siaya in western Kenya, Mwea in Central Kenya and regions in the coastal belt. These plants have historically been used by traditional health practitioners to treat malaria and we subjected them to laboratory tests in search of their anti parasitic properties.
Is malaria a public health problem in Kenya?
Malaria is preventable and treatable. But it’s a major public health problem in Kenya: there are an estimated 6.7 million new cases and 4,000 deaths each year. It accounts for 15% of all out patient attendance in Kenya’s health facilities’ admissions. Drug resistance has led to most of the malaria drugs in the market becoming ineffective in ...
What is malaria treated with?
Malaria is known as tazo or tazomoka in local terminology in Madagascar. Within the context of traditional practice, malaria (and/or malaria symptoms) is commonly treated by decoctions or infusions from bitter plants. One possible approach to the identification of new antimalarial drug candidates is to search for compounds that cure or prevent malaria in plants empirically used to treat malaria. Thus, it is worth documenting the ethnobotanical data, and testing the antiplasmodial activity of the extractive from plants.
What is malaria in Madagascar?
Malaria, which was initially recognized as episodic fever, was probably introduced into Madagascar from mainland Africa by immigration. Malaria was reported as early as 1602 on the coast of Madagascar [ 1 ]. This disease remains a public health problem [ 2 ]. The Malagasy words tazo and tazomoka refer to the clinical signs suggestive of malaria: principally fever, headache, backache, shivering and fatigue. Malagasy people, particularly those living in the countryside, use traditional plants to fight infectious diseases. The current use of plants for medicinal purposes reflects the attachment of the people to their culture and a lack of access to modern medicine (associated with poverty in most cases).
What plants are in the decoction of the leaf and bark?
A decoction of the leaf and bark is mixed with a selection of plants from the following list: Cinnamosma fragrans, Desmodium mauritianum, Ficus megapoda, Zanthoxylum tsihanimposa, Gambeya boiviniana, Peddia involucrata. This mixture is drunk (1 bowl, 3–4 times daily) to relieve malarial symptoms, tiredness, muscular aches and pains.
What are the effects of African medicine?
Plants used in traditional African medicine may have an effect on the malaria parasite as well as the mosquitoes that spread the disease. A Norwegian pilot project is now indexing and testing these plants.
Do plants kill malaria?
"There are several plants that have been shown to kill the malaria parasite," explains Researcher Torunn Stangeland of UMB. "Other plants are toxic to malaria-transmitting mosquitoes and could perhaps be utilised as insecticides." She and her colleague Hans Overgaard head the project.
How many compounds have been identified for anti-malarial activity?
So far over 28,000 extracts have been screened and the team has identified over 100 compounds with anti-malarial activity.
What is the history of anti-malarial drugs?
History of anti-malarial drugs. Malaria has long been treated with plant-based medicine. Quinine, which comes from the bark of a cinchona tree, was first isolated as an antimalarial compound in the 1800s, though there is evidence that bark extracts have been used to treat malaria since the 1600s.
How many people died from malaria in 2015?
According to the WHO’s World Malaria Report, there were 212 million new cases of malaria worldwide in 2015 and an estimated 429,000 deaths. Malaria is caused by the Plasmodium parasite.
Where is Malleastrum found?
An extract of the wood from a species of Malleastrum in the mahogany family was found to have moderate antimalarial activity against a drug-resistant strain of P. falciparum. The genus Malleastrum (Baill.) J.-F. Leroy is endemic to Madagascar and comprises 20 currently accepted species.
Is malaria a drug resistant parasite?
With the appearance of drug-resistant strains of the malaria parasite to all current medications, it is imperative new treatments be discovered. Since plant-based and traditional medicine have yielded a number of drugs historically it is likely that the next treatment option will again come from a plant source.
Is P. falciparum chloroquine resistant?
This wide-spread use, in part, led to chloroquine resistant strains of P. falciparum. The rise of chloroquine-resistance led to the discovery of several potential synthetic alternatives. However, in 1972 Chinese scientists isolated artemisinin from Artemisia annua, commonly known as sweet wormwood.