Titanji Vincent P K, Zofou Denis, Ngemenya Moses N
Biotechnology Unit, Faculty of science, University of Buea, PO Box 63 Buea South West Province, Cameroon.
Afr J Tradit Complement Altern Med. 2008 Apr 10;5(3):302-21.
Malaria remains one of the leading public health problems in Cameroon as in other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. In the past decades, this situation has been aggravated by the increasing spread of drug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum strains. New antimalarial drug leads are therefore urgently needed. Traditional healers have long used plants to prevent or cure infections. This article reviews the current status of botanical screening efforts in Cameroon as well as experimental studies done on antimalarial plants. Data collected from 54 references from various research groups in the literature up to June 2007 shows that 217 different species have been cited for their use as antimalarials in folk medicine in Cameroon. About a hundred phytochemicals have been isolated from 26 species some among which are potential leads for development of new antiamalarials. Crude extracts and or essential oils prepared from 54 other species showed a wide range of activity on Plasmodium spp. Moreover, some 137 plants from 48 families that are employed by traditional healers remain uninvestigated for their presumed antimalarial properties. The present study shows that Cameroonian flora represents a high potential for new antimalarial compounds. Further ethnobotanical surveys and laboratory investigations are needed to fully exploit the potential of the identified species in the control of malaria.
与撒哈拉以南非洲其他地区一样，疟疾仍是喀麦隆主要的公共卫生问题之一。在过去几十年中，耐氯喹恶性疟原虫菌株的不断扩散使这一情况更加严重。因此，迫切需要新的抗疟药物先导物。长期以来，传统治疗师一直使用植物来预防或治疗感染。本文综述了喀麦隆植物筛选工作的现状以及对抗疟植物所做的实验研究。截至2007年6月，从文献中54篇来自不同研究小组的参考文献收集的数据表明，喀麦隆有217种不同的植物被用于民间医学治疗疟疾。从26种植物中分离出了大约100种植物化学物质，其中一些是开发新型抗疟药物的潜在先导物。从其他54种植物中制备的粗提物和/或精油对疟原虫表现出广泛的活性。此外，传统治疗师使用的来自48个科的约137种植物，因其假定的抗疟特性仍未得到研究。本研究表明，喀麦隆植物群具有发现新型抗疟化合物的巨大潜力。需要进一步开展民族植物学调查和实验室研究，以充分发掘已鉴定物种在疟疾防治方面的潜力。
