Ethnobotanical perspective of antimalarial plants: traditional knowledge based study.

Abdul Qayum,Rakesh Arya,Andrew M Lynn

doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1827-z

Abstract

BackgroundConsidering the demand of antimalarial plants it has become essential to find and locate them for their optimal extraction. The work aims to find plants with antimalarial activities which were used by the local people; to raise the value of traditional knowledge system (TKS) prevalent in the study region; to compile characteristics of local plants used in malaria treatment (referred as antimalarial plants) and to have its spatial distribution analysis to establish a concept of geographical health.MethodsAntimalarial plants are listed based on literature survey and field data collected during rainy season, from 85 respondents comprised of different ethnic groups. Ethno-medicinal utilities of plants was extracted; botanical name, family, local name, part used, folklore, geographical location and image of plants were recorded after cross validating with existing literatures. The interview was trifurcated in field, Vaidya/Hakims and house to house. Graphical analysis was done for major plants families, plant part used, response of people and patients and folklore. Mathematical analysis was done for interviewee’s response, methods of plant identification and people’s preferences of TKS through three plant indices.ResultsFifty-one plants belonging to 27 families were reported with its geographical attributes. It is found plant root (31.75 %) is used mostly for malaria treatment and administration mode is decoction (41.2 %) mainly. The study area has dominance of plants of family Fabaceae (7), Asteraceae (4), Acanthaceae (4) and Amaranthaceae (4). Most popular plants found are Adhatoda vasica, Cassia fistula and Swertia chirata while % usage of TKS is 82.0 % for malaria cure.ConclusionThe research findings can be used by both scientific community and common rural people for bio-discovery of these natural resources sustainably. The former can extract the tables to obtain a suitable plant towards finding a suitable lead molecule in a drug discovery project; while the latter can meet their local demands of malaria, scientifically.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1827-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Considering the demand of antimalarial plants it has become essential to find and locate them for their optimal extraction
Malaria is a major public health problem in India, 40 million people are suffering from this single celled Plasmodium, a protozoan parasite and more than 1.5 million confirmed cases are reported annually by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), New Delhi of which 40–50 % is due to Plasmodium falciparum (Pf )
It was found that 41.2 % responses are ‘poor’ while 19.6 % people are unknown for any traditional knowledge (TK) Based system in the region (Graph 3)

Summary

Introduction

Considering the demand of antimalarial plants it has become essential to find and locate them for their optimal extraction. The work aims to find plants with antimalarial activities which were used by the local people; to raise the value of traditional knowledge system (TKS) prevalent in the study region; to compile characteristics of local plants used in malaria treatment (referred as antimalarial plants) and to have its spatial distribution analysis to establish a concept of geographical health. Traditional medicine plays a pivotal role in the economy and sustainable growth of developing nations especially for poor countries like India. Ethno-medicinal and ethno-botanical studies have offered immense scope and opportunities for the development and synthesis of new drugs. Malaria is a major public health problem in India, 40 million people are suffering from this single celled Plasmodium, a protozoan parasite and more than 1.5 million confirmed cases are reported annually by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), New Delhi of which 40–50 % is due to Plasmodium falciparum (Pf ). Malaria can be considered as poor man’s disease and it requires focussed planning both at the level of government and at the community level

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Discussion

Conclusion