Chapter 7 - Preparation, Standardization, and Quality Control of Medicinal Plants in Africa

Abstract

Plants have recently become of great interest due to their applications in modern medicines, nutraceuticals, food supplements, pharmaceutical intermediates, folk medicines, and chemical entities for synthetic drugs. Preparation, standardization, and quality control of herbal medicinal plants in Africa are essential to ensure the quality and consistency of the traditional medicinal plant products. In this review, we discuss the factors that affect the use of herb preparations; different modes of its preparations, which include concoctions, decoctions, tablets, syrups, and powder; modes of plant extracts preparation in laboratories were also highlighted in the study. Further, the need for steps involved, and different techniques in the standardization of medicinal plant preparations, which include microscopic, physical, chemical, and biological evaluations, purity determination and analytical methods, which include chromatography, control of starting materials, and contaminants of herbal ingredients were extensively discussed. The challenges and factors that affect the quality control of medicinal plant preparations in Africa such as identity of plant materials, variations in botanicals, and adulteration and contamination of botanicals were also studied, while the different parameters used for and approaches in quality control of herbal medicines which include validations and labeling of herbal products, pesticide residues, radioactive contamination, foreign matter and ash content, fingerprint and metabolomics approaches were also reviewed.