World Health Organization (WHO) report on traditional medicine indicates that an estimated 80 per cent of Africans depend on indigenous plants based medicine, while about 25 per cent of the prescribed medicine in the world contain some plant derivatives. These natural products can now be purchased from health food shops, supermarkets and chemists.
“The use of indigenous plants in primary healthcare is an old practice,” says Prof. Samuel Kariuki in his paper “Use of Indigenous Plants in Sustaining Health and Livehoods in Africa,” adding that “it has been nearly parallel to the conventional medicine, but is now recognized as an important part of the economy and health.”
Kariuki says that the western world has made the practice popular after people realized that food supplements in food stores and pharmacies are natural products. The increased use of plant based drugs such as artemisin for malaria treatment instead of sulphur-based drugs has also boosted the practice. “People have realized that there are no serious side effects associated with herbal medicine as in conventional medicine.”
This paper articulate that screening of plants has shown that they consist of numerous different substances including vitamins, trace elements, macronutrients, curative and toxic substances.
Since these plants are applied in admixture form some healing cases appear miraculous as nobody exactly understands the interactions.
“Some patients after being discontinued from conventional medical treatment due to their terminal conditions have resulted in using herbal treatment that has given them a lot of hope,” says the paper that was presented in an international conference on bioethics.
A study that was carried out by the Egerton University Herbal Medicine Research Centre shows that most of the patients in urban areas seek herbal treatment after failing to recover from conventional medicine at hospitals. Most of this patients are also suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, asthma, arthritis, ulcers, and cardiac problems.
DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF DISEASES
Most of the herbalist depend on their experience in disease diagnosis and treatment, research reveals. “This risk in giving wrong treatment unless for an obvious problem such as skin disease, snake bites or boils,” says Kariuki, adding that “this trial and error method often may result in prescribing over dose or under dose.”
However, there are some herbalist who insist on patients' first getting proper diagnosis from conventional doctors and technicians before prescribing medicine. “This is now improving and accrediting the practice that was previously regarded as primitive and synonymous to witchcraft,” says Njiru in pers.comm..
TRADE IN HERBAL MEDICINE
There is both local and export market for herbal products in Africa. Some herbalist are making an income in selling medical plants seedlings, raw materials such as roots, barks or semi-processed products to other practicing herbalists. However, most of this trade is informal thus cannot be easily quantified.
The World Wide fund (WWF) research on Africa bio-diversity reveals that Africa is calling sorts in plant species diversity: Cameroon has 900, Democratic Republic of Congo, 11,000, Kenya, 7,500, and Madagascar, 11,000. This has resulted in the increasing investments in new drug discovery programmes by some multinational pharmaceutical companies – which has lead to over-harvesting of some plant species.
According to the ministry of health 23 per cent of Kenyan can not afford to access conventional medical treatment. Thus “the herbal products have become available in both rural and urban centres since they are cheaper than conventional drugs,” says Kariuki.
The don is of the idea that herbal and conventional medicines need to be integrated. “This will give patients options of using any form of medicine as the goal in any practice is to improve healthcare and livehood of the people,” he says, explaining: “Herbalists need to be trained on proper plant identification, diagnosis, dosage and safe packing.”
He farther elaborates that “conventional doctors need to be introduced to natural products and plants analysis and testing should be part of training. This will add value on our indigenous plants and improve in resource conservation and protection. The two forms of medicine and practitioners should be available in most of hospitals so that patients have a choice of treatments.”
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