Utilization and Effectiveness of Herbal Medicine in Treatment of Malaria in Osun State

Abstract

Concern among health professionals has been raised by the ongoing rise in the prevalence of malaria in recent years. Herbal treatments have been deemed the most popular form of traditional medicine in Africa and a high percentage used it for malaria treatment. Poor health care services with unaffordable malaria have been a major barrier to malaria control. This study investigated the use and effectiveness of traditional medicine in treatment of malaria in Osun State, Nigeria. 15 people with malaria across the three senatorial districts of Osun State were selected, using snow balling sampling techniques. Experimental design was utilised to assess the level of knowledge on malaria. Descriptive survey was used to assess the use of traditional medicine, and true experiments to test efficacy of herbal medicine. This study found that respondents have inadequate knowledge of traditional medicine for treatment of malaria and lack adequate knowledge that anopheles mosquito cause malaria. However, use of traditional medicine is high among respondents, with most of the listed herbs achieving a significant point for mean (2.5). Majority of respondents either have malaria parasites hibernated and experience malaria relapse later or the herbal medicine used were ineffective in the first place. The effectiveness of these combined herbs is also dependent on the intensity of the malaria infection. The study concluded that traditional medicine is effective among just in a few of the respondents, who combined, prepared herbs appropriately and took it as prescribed by experienced herbs experts. Keywords; Malaria, Treatment of malaria, Herbal medicine.