Over eighty percent of the world population depend on traditional medicine for their basic health care needs. A study was carried out in three counties in Kenya (Kajiado, Narok and Nairobi) to document the common plant species traded as medicinal or herbal remedies. Structured interviews and questionnaire were administered to herbalists with prior informed consent, who were willing to disclose information on the source, plant type and parts of the herbal medicine they were selling and ailments treated. The folk or common names were recorded and later translated to scientific names using para-taxonomists and previous published data. Majority of the herbalists interviewed were between the ages of 40-59 years and comprised of mostly women (54%). The investigations revealed that eighty-six (86) plant species were traded as medicinal plants out of which 51% were commonly traded across the three counties. The study further revealed that the most traded plant parts were stem, bark and roots which could pose a threat to conservation of the species due to complete or partial destruction of the trees during harvesting. Aloe species, Prunus africana and Osyris lanceolata were highly traded an indication of their preference by local inhabitants to treat particular ailments. The generated list of medicinal plants species will form baseline data that could be used to generate a comprehensive list of all plant species traded as herbal medicine in Kenya. The commonly traded plants can also be included in pharmacological studies which may lead to development of new and potential drugs.
There exists a long history of herbal products use but recently there are concerns on authenticity and safety of some these products. Majority of the herbal products traded in Kenyan markets are processed plant parts, which have been dried or in powder form and are extremely difficult to identify taxonomically. This study was carried out in selected markets in Nairobi County, the capital city of Kenya to assess authenticity of herbal products traded in the region using deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) barcoding technology by applying internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and ribulose -1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase Large subunit (rbcL) markers. One hundred and twelve herbal products were purchased from practicing herbalists and analyzed using ITS and rbcL DNA barcoding markers. DNA was extracted from acquired samples, amplified and sequences generated. BLAST search with edited generated sequences against the NCBI database was done to recover the expected species. Our findings showed that 35% of the herbal products were wrongly labeled and contained different species compared to those listed on the labels. Out of 92 samples with positive sequences, 58 matched their expected species after the BLAST search. Among the authentic species identified are O. lanceolata, M. oleifera, W. ugandensis, O. europaea, Acacia species, and C. spinarum. However, 32 species did not match the expected species as listed on labels and were concluded to have been substituted. Among them were R. prinoides, T. abyssinica, U. massaica and A. indica, which were substituted with their close relatives, while R. tridentate, Z. usambarense and Prunus africana were substituted with unrelated species with no reported medical benefits. ITS marker had remarkable identification efficiency at 98% to species level compared to rbcL at 89%. We recommend further studies to establish at what stage substitution takes place, as well as utilization of DNA barcoding technology for medicinal plants authentication and verification
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