Medicinal plants are used for treatment of a variety of diseases. They are sources of modern medicine and a major source of remedy in developing countries. Even when some knowledge of traditional use of plants in Africa was lost due to lack of documentation [1], active experimentation on medicinal plants by local population continued [2]. The emergence of new diseases such as HIV/AIDS and resur...

Malaria is a serious cause of mortality globally. The disease is of regional concern in Africa and of national interest in Kenya due to its high morbidity and mortality as a result of development of resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum to many existing drugs such as chloroquine. Alternative medicine using herbal remedies are commonly used to treat malaria in Kenya. However, plants used in...

Hot water extracts from eight medicinal plants representing five families, used for malaria treatment in Kenya were screened for their in vivo antimalarial activity in mice against a chloroquine (CQ) resistant Plasmodium berghei NK65, either alone or in combination with CQ. Extracts of three plants, Toddalia asiatica (root bark), Rhamnus prinoides (leaves and root bark) and Vernonia lasiopus (r...

Plants of genus Polygonatum (Ruscaceae) are widely used in traditional medicine to cure many diseases such as ageing, antioxidative action, insecticidal, antiherpetic, antinociception and aphrodisiac. A variety of phytoconstituents has been isolated from the Polygonatum species which include lignans, flavonoids, coumarins, steroids, terpenes, fatty acids and aliphatic long chain compounds. Anti...

In this review we discuss the ongoing situation of human malaria in the Brazilian Amazon, where it is endemic causing over 610,000 new acute cases yearly, a number which is on the increase. This is partly a result of drug resistant parasites and new antimalarial drugs are urgently needed. The approaches we have used in the search of new drugs during decades are now reviewed and include ethnopha...

Efforts in malaria treatment are currently directed towards the discovery and development of new antimalarial compounds. In this way two plants Cochlospermum tinctorium A. Rich. (Cochlospermaceae) and Gardenia sokotensis Hutch (Rubiaceae) traditionally used to treat symptoms of malaria in Burkina Faso were screened for antimalarial activity in vivo with Plasmodium berghei. Dichloromethane extra...