Plants as antimalarial agents in Sub-Saharan Africa

Antiprotozoal dimeric naphthylisoquinolines, mbandakamines B3 and B4, and related 5,8′-coupled monomeric alkaloids, ikelacongolines A–D, from a Congolese Ancistrocladus liana

“…[35][36][37] For this reason, several research groups from medicinal chemistry, pharmacy, and infection biology focus on the search of new effective agents for the treatment of tropical infectious diseases. In the recent years, intense phytochemical studies on African plants have led to the discovery of terpenoids, alkaloids, avonoids, quinones, lignans, coumarins, and many other natural products displaying excellent antiprotozoal activities, [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] thus providing templates and new scaffolds for the development of a new generation of more potent drugs. Most promising sources for such lead compounds are Ancistrocladus species from Central Africa.…”

Western medicine in Africa to 1900, Part I: North, West and Central Africa

“…For millennia, Africans living in the tropics had mediated the impact of these diseases by drawing on the tremendous diversity of medicinal plants in the area. Recent work by anthropologists, historians, and biologists has shown that plants such as Adansonia digitata , Azadirachta indica , Cassia occidentalis , Momordica charantia , Cryptolepis sanguinolenta , taken as herbal tonics, contain alkaloids with antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties (Chinsembu, ). West and Central Africans also added divination rituals, drumming cults, and consecrated medicines to their healing repertoire, in an effort to diagnose the spiritual causes of ill health.…”

Phytochemical-constituents, safety and efficacy of commonly used medicinal plants for the treatment of malaria in Ethiopia-a review

“…Indigenous knowledge, coupled with a history of safe use and ethno pharmacological efficacy, present a faster approach to discover new antimalarial agents. 12 The increased malaria drug resistance and mosquito vectors to insecticides together with challenges of having effective anti-malaria vaccines, urgent need to search for effective, easily available, affordable and safe alternative anti-malaria drugs is necessary. 13 Historically, In Ethiopia, there are documentations of medicinal plants used traditionally for the treatment of malaria in different parts of the country.…”