Patrick Engeu Ogwang

• Mbarara University of Science and Technology

Background Initiation of ART among people living with HIV (PLWH) having a CD4 count ≤ 350cells/µl, produces poor immunological recovery, putting them at a high risk of opportunistic infections. To mitigate this, PLWH on ART in Uganda frequently use herbal remedies like Artemisia annua and Moringa oleifera, but their clinical benefits and potential...

Introduction: Artemisia annua is a medicinal plant grown by Ugandan farmers in Kabale and Kabarole. It is particularly used in preparation of antimalarial herbal teas used to control and prevent malaria. The content of these antimalarial compounds in A.annua (Anamed) grown in Uganda are low compared to cultivars in other countries but could be enha...

Introduction Patients with cancer in Africa embrace the use of herbal medicine more than anywhere else in the world. This study identified and documented medicinal plant species used to manage cancer in ten (10) districts of Uganda. Methods An ethnobotanical survey was conducted between October 2021 and January 2022. In total, eighteen (out of 5...

Background: Dog bites arise due to man’s casual and tactical association with dogs, and it is a global health challenge. Rural and semi-urban communities are the most affected since accessing conventional post-exposure prophylaxis is nearly a myth. As an alternative, readily available and affordable medicinal plants are used. Indigenous knowledge a...

Background Despite the increasing acceptance of medicinal plant use in combination with conventional antituberculosis drugs in treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in Uganda, there is paucity of knowledge on their combination effect. This research aimed to find combination activity of standard antituberculosis drugs with extracts of Zanthoxylum leprieuri...

Introduction: Mangifera indica leaves are among the most common materials employed in manufacturing herbal medicinal products. Despite the phytochemical variation of M. indica cultivars, there are no monographs to guide the cultivation, processing, and authentication of the materials. Methods: This study characterized 15 Ugandan M. indica leaf v...

Traditional medicine practitioners (TMPs) are a critical part of healthcare systems in many sub-Saharan African countries and play vital roles in caring for patients with cancer. Despite some progress in describing TMPs’ caring experiences in abstract terms, literature about practice models in Africa remains limited. This study aimed to develop a s...

Different parts of Artemisia vulgaris L. (A. vulgaris) are ethno-medicinally used as an emmenagogue and for the treatment of ailments such as malaria fever, ulcers, and cancer. However, anecdotal evidence shows that the plant is often substituted for Artemisia annua L. (A. annua) by herbalists in Western Uganda due to similarities in their morpholo...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a public health challenge and one of the leading causes of death worldwide. TB is preventable and curable. However, treatment of tuberculosis has continued to be difficult as a result of rapid increase of multidrug and extensively drug resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Medicinal plants have for centuries bee...

Amidst rising cases of antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are regarded as a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics. Even so, poor pharmacokinetic profiles of certain AMPs impede their utility necessitating, a careful assessment of potential AMPs’ absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADMET) pr...

Background Initiation of HAART among people living with HIV (PLWH) having a CD4 count ≤ 350cells/µl, produces poor immunological recovery, putting them at a high risk of opportunistic infections. Artemisia annua and Moringa oleifera are among the herbs commonly consumed by PLWH on HAART to boost their immunity, but their clinical benefits and poten...

Rhipicephalus (boophilus) decoloratus (ticks) are causing great economic loss among the cattle rearers from cattle mortalities and costs during the treatments. Synthetic acaricides have been used for a long time in the management of ticks, however chemical resistance from multiple uses of acaricides as well as contamination of dairy products from t...

Introduction: The Uganda National Drug Authority requires phytochemical screening, freedom from microbial contamination, and evidence of safety and efficacy of the constituent plants to register herbal products. Since Uganda has no pharmacopeia, safety, efficacy, and plant processing information are not readily available. We documented the plant m...

Background: The skin mucus layer of fish is endowed with biologics including, Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) that offer a first line of defence against pathogens. Such peptides can either inhibit bacterial growth or completely kill the bacteria and hence are regarded as a viable alternative to traditional antibiotics, in addressing the ever-increasi...

Background Several local communities in Central, Western, Eastern, and Northern regions of Uganda have been using the whole leaf extracts of Aloe vera (L.) Burm. f. (Asphodelaceae) in the treatment of various ailments. Also, several commercial companies sell A. vera as soft drinks in Uganda. However, there are inadequate reports on the toxicities o...

Physalis peruviana L. is among plant species possessing evident nutritional, nutraceutical, and commercial interests. This review highlights the complexity of the chemical composition supporting the multiple pharmacotherapeutic indications and dietary values of this plant through evidence-based studies from Google Scholar, PubMed/Medline, SciFinder...

SARS-CoV-2 is a well-known viral strain that causes COVID-19. The disease became a pandemic in early 2020 and infected millions of people and killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Vaccine development against the disease was accelerated with multiple collaborations among research institutions in order to shorten the duration that vaccine...

Background: Viruses cause various human diseases, some of which become pandemic outbreaks. This study synthesized evidence on antiviral medicinal plants in Africa which could potentially be further studied for viral infections including Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treatment. Methods: PUBMED, CINAHIL, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Google datab...

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) constitute a broad range of bioactive compounds in diverse organisms, including fish. They are effector molecules for the innate immune response, against pathogens, tissue damage and infections. Still, AMPs from African Catfish, Clarias gariepinus , skin mucus are largely unexplored despite their possible therapeutic r...

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa, herbal medicine for cancer is dispensed by traditional medicine practitioners (TMPs) to a large extent, who may not have adequate knowledge about the disease and this has been found to contribute to the late presentation of cancer patients to clinics and hospitals leading to poor patient outcomes. Aim: This study...

Several studies have been conducted and published on medicinal plants used to manage Diabetes Mellitus worldwide. It is of great interest to review available studies from a country or a region to resort to similarities/discrepancies and data quality. Here, we examined data related to ethnopharmacology and bioactivity of antidiabetic plants used in...

Background: Occurrence of adverse drug reactions is a major global health problem mostly affecting older adults. Identifying the magnitude and predictors of adverse drug reactions is crucial to developing strategies to mitigate the burden of adverse drug reactions. This study’s objectives were to estimate and compare the prevalences of adverse drug...

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection represents a huge burden on healthcare systems worldwide. Vachellia nilotica (V. nilotica) is a widely used plant specie in folk medicine for viral diseases and in some communities for HCV infection. However, little is known regarding its role and possible mechanisms in the prevention and treatment of this viral in...

Citropsis articulata (Spreng.) is a potent medicinal plant that is increasingly threatened by unsustainable harvesting and habitat destruction due to deforestation. This calls for enhancement of ex-situ conservation of C. articulata through offsite production. However, the success of offsite production of this species heavily rests on precisely ass...

Background: Aloe vera and Aloe ferox have over the years been among the most sought-after Aloe species in the treatment of ailments worldwide. This review provides categorized literature on the phytochemical and scientifically proven toxicological profiles of A. vera and A. ferox to facilitate their exploitation in therapy. Main body of the abstr...

Ethnopharmacological relevance . The recognized challenges to access conventional antimalarial medicines could have contributed to the extensive use of Aristolochia bracteolata Lam. (Aristolochiaceae)to manage malaria in South Sudan traditionally. However, the use and acquired experiences are notwell documented. Aim of the study . This study aimed...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis remains one of the world's contributors to mortality. With the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 coinfections, patients with TB are predisposed to getting COVID-19 disease. The severity of the disease coupled with drug resistance on the currently used drugs warrants for the search for alternative remedies from plants. Africa is ric...

Ethnopharmacological relevance Malaria remains a dire health challenge, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In Uganda, it is a most ordinary condition in hospital admission and outpatient care. The country's meager health services compel malaria patients to use herbal remedies such as Schkuhria pinnata (Lam.) Kuntze ex Thell (Asteraceae). Although...

Background: Although herbal medicines are used by patients with cancer in multiple oncology care settings, the magnitude of herbal medicine use in this context remains unclear. The purpose of this review was to establish the prevalence of herbal medicine use among patients with cancer, across various geographical settings and patient characteristi...

Citropsis articulata is a medicinal plant that is increasingly threatened by unsustainable methods of harvesting and habitat degradation. Owing to the fact that this plant species is highly utilized for herbal medicine and is currently restricted to a few forest reserves in Uganda, this has significant implications for ex situ conservation. Therefo...

Background: Prostatic diseases which include prostatitis, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and prostate cancer are the benign or malignant disorders that affect the prostate. Phytotherapies have been adopted as the alternative treatment/ management option especially for BPH since the current modern methods of treatment presents a lot of adverse e...

Osteoarthritis remains a challenge in most parts of the world most particularly considering that one of the influencing factors, aging, cannot be avoided. Glucosamine and chondroitin have been used against the disorder for many years and have a huge market base in Europe and the United States where they are generally marketed as sulfates. Research...

Background: Achieving favorable HIV treatment outcomes is a major challenge, particularly due to non-adherence and consequent sub-therapeutic plasma antiretroviral drug levels. This is often complicated by the development of resistant strains due to mutations. Monitoring antiretroviral drug levels in the blood of patients enrolled on ART can reveal...

Antimicrobial resistance remains a great threat to global health. In response to the World Health Organizations’ global call for action, nature has been explored for novel and safe antimicrobial candidates. To date, fish have gained recognition as potential source of safe, broad spectrum and effective antimicrobial therapeutics. The use of computat...

Plants have been in use for centuries as food as well as drug sources. Their inherent and/or sometimes modified characteristics increase their usefulness in these categories. Toxic plants have also been considered in drug development over the years, providing effective drugs against various diseases such as cancers. This chapter outlines some of th...

Herbal products are currently used all over the world. The only difference among countries is in the extent of reliance on them. Poisonous plants are the source of some of the compounds included in a variety herbal products, including drugs against various ailments. The use of poisonous plants in the formulation of herbal products may put consumers...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic hyperglycemic condition due to progressively impaired glucose regulation. Momordica charantia L. could potentially improve hyperglycemia because its fruit extracts can alleviate insulin resistance, beta-cell dysfunction, and increase serum insulin level. We evaluated the effect of M. charantia L. in comparison...

Background Medicinal plants have been used in the management of diseases since ancient times. In recent decades, we have witnessed the growing interest in herbal medicine used as complementary or alternative to conventional therapy across countries. Dissatisfaction with the outcomes of conventional therapies mainly increased side effects and the fa...

Regiments of current drugs for tuberculosis are lengthy and are associated with many adverse effects. Currently, the emergence of different resistant strains has been observed. This urges a need for the discovery and development of novel drugs. The main sources of drug lead candidates are based on natural products. Zanthoxylum leprieurii, Lantana c...

Background: Epilepsy has affected over sixty million people around the globe. Traditionally, communities have opted for complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) to help in the treatment of epilepsy which has worked for them and with minimal side effects. Methodology: A literature search was conducted from PubMed, Science Direct, Elsevier, Goog...

Introduction Phytolacca dodecandra L’Hér. is a native plant of sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar which is traditionally used for various ailments. Concerned with the scope of the available evidence, we designed a scoping review to critically analyze scientific evidence on P dodecandra’s pharmacology, toxicity, and phytochemistry to validate its eth...

The study aims to estimate the prevalence of herbal medicines use in cancer patients across the various regions of the world (geographical regions, economic regions) and establish the key predictors of herbal medicines use in those regions. The study will only synthesize literature from primary observational studies (cohorts and crosssectional stud...

The use of pregelatinised maize starch in direct compression as a sole binder produces tablets with relatively low tensile strength. Fully gelatinised maize starch possesses better binding properties but its use is limited in immediate release tablets. The aim of this work was to prepare a blend of fully gelatinised and pregelatinised maize starch...

Nutri-medicinal plants are widely used as a remedy for some ailments among pregnant women worldwide. There are different medicinal plants used by pregnant women in Uganda depending on the culture and knowledge of these medicinal plants. A cross sectional study was carried out on 135 women in Kyeizooba sub county Bushenyi District from September 201...

Cancers remain one of the leading causes of death in the world. However, known conventional cancer medicines remain scarce, expensive and out of reach to many patients. To provide an alternative for the expensive therapies, plants are proving to have potential to lead to the development of more drugs against cancers. In this work, we aimed at isola...

Background Momordica charantia L. (Cucurbitaceae) has been used to control hyperglycemia in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Asia, South America, and Africa for decades. However, a meta-analysis of clinical trials confirmed very low-quality evidence of its efficacy. To potentially increase the certainty of evidence, we evaluated the effect o...

Dioscorea bulbifera bulbils are used in the treatment of Piles, dysentery, syphilis, ulcers, cough, leprosy, diabetes, asthma, and cancer. It is a raw material for contraceptives, and it is one of the most consumed yam species especially in West Africa. Unfortunately, this plant is at the verge of extinction because of increased harvest for medicin...

Background Momordica charantia Linnaeus (Cucurbitaceae) has been used traditionally as a nutritious food and as a herbal medicine for type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, human studies that investigated its glycemic control have generated inconsistent findings. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis is aimed at evaluating the safety and...

Eichhornia crassipes is reported to have molecules that are active against liver, cervical, breast cancers and melanoma cells. This systematic review was conducted according to Cochrane hand book of systematic review and guidelines for systematic reviews aiming to explore the potential that the plant has in providing drug leads against cancer. The...

Human tuberculosis (TB) is amongst the oldest and deadliest human bacterial diseases that pose major health, social and economic burden at a global level. Current regimens for TB treatment are lengthy, expensive and ineffective to emerging drug resistant strains. Thus, there is an urgent need for identification and development of novel TB drugs and...

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Momordica charantia Linnaeus (Cucurbitaceae) has been extensively used traditionally as food and herbal medicine for type 2 diabetes mellitus in Asia, Brazil, and east Africa. In vitro and in vivo studies suggest its glycemic control potential; however, clinical studies produced conflicting results. Aim of the study:...

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Antimicrobial resistance has posed a great global burden, with the fear that by 2050 it would have killed more people than cancer if nothing much is done about it. Alongside several attempts in place, zoo-therapy is becoming one of important remedies in the modern society, with hope for solution believed to be hidden in nature. In this study, the a...

The antimalarial active compounds in Artemisia annua include artemisinin, flavonoids, and aromatic oils. Artemisinin is the main antimalarial compound in A. annua, it used in the formulation of artemisinin-based combined therapies used to treat malaria. Artemisinin is largely obtained from A. annua plant but the content in it is very low and its pr...

Various studies have been done to assess the wound healing potential of Aloe barbadensis and Bidens pilosa. Plant materials/ extracts that have been used in most of those studies have shown superior/ comparable efficacy with respect to positive controls used. However, there remains a big gap concerning standardisation of doses to use since there is...

Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze) is among the most widely consumed non-alcoholic beverages. It is a rich source of essential dietary elements mainly potassium and manganese. Tea may also contain toxic metals such as cadmium and lead which pose a threat to human health because of their toxicity. Twenty samples of commercial black tea in Kampala c...

Levels of aluminium, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, mercury, manganese, nickel, lead and zinc in tap water, groundwater-fed protected spring and bottled water were determined. The cancer and non-cancer risks associated with ingestion of heavy metals (HM) were also assessed for both children and adults. Forty seven water samples obtained...

Introduction: Artemisia annua plant from the family Asteracea is a powerful antimalarial plant introduced to Uganda around 2003. In addition to the artemisinin component, the plant also contains flavonoids which work in synergy to artemisinin against malaria parasites. The plant also contains aromatic oils which repel mosquitoes. In this paper we...

Artemisinin from the plant Artemisia annua (A. annua) L, and used as artemisinin combination therapy (ACT), is the current best therapeutic for treating malaria, a disease that hits children and adults especially in developing countries. Traditionally, A. annua was used by the Chinese as a tea to treat "fever". More recently, investigators have sho...

Naphthoquinones are common compounds found in several species of Bignoniaceae and exhibit anti plasmodial activity hence providing leads for discovery and development of anti theilerial drugs. This study has established the presence of naphthoquinones in the leaf, stem bark and root bark of S. kunthianum for both the hydrophilic and lipophilic extr...

Abstract Malaria is the most prevalent infectious disease in the world, killing 1-2 million people each year. New drugs are urgently needed to treat drug-resistant strains of malaria. In a previous study we found that extracts from Salvia palestinia leaves inhibited the formation of β-hematin with efficiency similar to that of chloroquine. The obje...

Long used as a therapeutic tea by the Chinese to treat fever, Artemisia annua is more recently being studied and used for eventual treatment for not only malaria, but also many other diseases. This chapter describes studies using in vitro systems, animal models, and humans to evaluate use of not only combinations of pure compounds from the plant, b...

Purpose: To evaluate the protective effect of Artemisia annua infusion against malaria in a community that uses it as herbal 'tea' for malaria prevention. Methods: 132 flower farm workers who met the study inclusion criteria and were not yet using A. annua infusion were randomized either to A. annua or placebo groups in the ratio of 1:1. Treatments...

Catharanthus roseus is a medicinal plant with various pharmacological properties. In this study, we investigated the in vivo antidiarrheal activity of C. roseus ethanolic leaf extract in Wistar rats. Castor oil was used to induce experimental diarrhea in rats pretreated with extracts administered at 200 and 500 mg/kg to determine antidiarrheal effe...

The ethanolic extracts of Bidens pilosa and Ocimum suave were evaluated for their wound healing potential on excision wound models in Wistar albino rats. A total of nine (n=9) rats per group were used to assess the wound healing potential of the extracts. There were four groups of animals treated topically twice a day with either of the following:...

Purpose: To evaluate the protective effect of Artemisia annua infusion against malaria in a community that uses it as herbal 'tea' for malaria prevention. Methods: 132 flower farm workers who met the study inclusion criteria and were not yet using A. annua infusion were randomized either to A. annua or placebo groups in the ratio of 1:1. Treatments...

Malaria is major public health problem in Uganda endemic in 95% contributing up to 40% of hospital outpatient attendances. Approaches to controlling the disease include; environmental, entomological and medicinal interventions. Some communities use medicinal plants to control the disease. In this paper we report the use of Artemisia annua L. for ma...