Traditional medicine refers to health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses or maintain well-being. In the last decade traditional medicine has become very popular in Cameroon, partly due to the long unsustainable economic situation in the country. The high cost of drugs and increase in drug resistance to common diseases like malaria, bacteria infections and other sexually transmitted diseases has caused the therapeutic approach to alternative traditional medicine as an option for concerted search for new chemical entities (NCE). The World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Cameroon Government has put in place a strategic platform for the practice and development of TM in Cameroon. This platform aims at harmonizing the traditional medicine practice in the country, create a synergy between TM and modern medicine and to institutionalize a more harmonized integrated TM practices by the year 2012 in Cameroon. An overview of the practice of TM past, present and future perspectives that underpins the role in sustainable poverty alleviation has been discussed. This study gives an insight into the strategic plan and road map set up by the Government of Cameroon for the organisational framework and research platform for the practice and development of TM, and the global partnership involving the management of TM in the country.

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Objectives: There is a huge demand for medicinal bark in developing countries and this demand is growing fast due to it high market values. To assess the effects of bark functions and tree capacities to recover from various debarking practices, a two-year experiment was conducted and several local harvest practices were tested on Garcinia lucida. Methodology and Results: For each practice, 20 healthy trees were selected and harvested. Tree health was monitored every month and the total bark regrowth was calculated using planimetric techniques. In response to bark removal, G. lucida trees produced stilt-roots, sprouts and bark. Re-growth of bark was the most common strategy developed, with mean values ranging from 80 to 100% of trees. All stumps have developed sprouts, with an average number of 6 shoots per stump. The percentage of bark regrowth varies from 45 to 62% of the initial surface debarked for small trees and from 24 to 37% for large trees. A high rate of bark regeneration was found if narrow strips of bark remained on trees, from which bark was hardly removed from wood during harvest, probably characterized physiologically by a downward sap flow due to poor water supply in trees. Conclusions and application of findings:The study has discussed main findings on the experimental debarking of G. lucida and management implications, which would also apply to other species with the same response to bark stripping as source of raw materials for plant-based drug prospects in developing countries. Bark strip harvesting requires species-specific parameters to make it sustainable, taking into account : (i) the bark regeneration capacity (edge growth), which may allow repeated harvest on the same tree; and (ii) the physiological status (downward sap flow) of the tree at the time of harvest, as decisive factor triggering bark regrowth. Partial bark strip harvesting show good prospects for the implementation of long-term sustainable strip harvesting prescriptions, while sustainable stripping through ring-barking practice is unsuitable. Shoot growth and stilt-root development in G. lucida species allows for other management options than strip harvesting, including coppice management and domestication. However, there are major limitations in using

Guedje et al., J. Appl. Biosci. 2017 Garcinia lucida Vesque (Clusiaceae): from traditional uses to pharmacopeic monograph for an emerging local plant-based drug development 10594Journal of Applied Biosciences 109: 10594-10608 ISSN 1997-5902 Garcinia lucida Vesque (Clusiaceae): from traditional uses to pharmacopeic monograph for an emerging local plant-based drug development ABSTRACT Objectives: This paper seeks to assess information on the identity, traditional uses, safety and efficacy of Garcinia lucida Vesque (Essok in Boulou and Ewondo local language), in order to highlight it potential as species to be registered in medicinal plant list and formularies needed for the development of monographs leading to local production of phytomedicines. Methodology and Results: Ethnobotanical survey was carried in the Bipindi-Akom II region (South Cameroon) with the help of interviews based on standardised questionnaires addressed to key-informants. Bark and seeds were the major parts used, highly appreciated due to its properties in preventing consumers from poison, diarrhoea and headaches. The most important therapeutic indications were additive to palm wine, antidote to poisoning, gastritis and snake bite. Other uses in treating included gynaecological pains and infections, sexual diseases and cancers. The bark was also believed by local people to act on the stability of chemical antibiotic drugs in pharmacy, while leaves were used as insect repellent against mosquitoes and cockroaches. Conclusions and application of findings: As an additive in palm wine processing, poisoning antidote, aphrodisiac and medicines, bark and seeds are widely used in the Bipindi-Lolodorf-Akom II area, in the Centre and South regions of Cameroon, in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, in Central Africa and West Africa. This similarity of use across many regions is considered as important biological activity marker tools guiding plant parts or species selection in drug discovery and development using ethnopharmacological approach. Through the ethnobotanical and biological tests, assessed, accurate information is provided to substantiate safety and efficacy of G. lucida and to satisfy the requirements of official compendia such as pharmacopoeia. Further studies are needed to understand the effects of bark and seeds as additive to palm wine, as well as the interaction between bark and chemical antibiotic drugs.

Ethnopharmacological and ethnobotanical approach of medicinal plants used in the traditional treatment of Buruli ulcer in Akonolinga (Cameroon) ABSTRACTFew data are available concerning plants used in the traditional treatment of Buruli ulcer in Cameroon. This study aimed to identify species and characterize anti-Buruli ulcer recipes in the Akonolinga district. The H. N. BAYAGA et al. / Int. J. Biol. Chem. Sci. 11(4): 1523-1541, 2017 1524 ethnopharmacological survey has enabled to identify 25 plant species used against Buruli ulcer. The plant parts mostly used were stem bark (41.1%), stem (26.8%) and leaves (25%). Decoction (64.3%) and pounding (23.2%), the most dominant preparing method, were administrated externally, mostly by massage and disinfection (64.3%) and by local poultice application (14.3%). The analysis of relative frequency of citation, as well as the search of similarity and convergence of use, have shown that Musa parasidiaca, Mitracarpus villosus, Aframomum melegueta, Elaeis guineensis and Spathodea campanulata were among species exhibiting remarkable convergence of use between different geographical regions; while seven others, Petersianthus macrocarpus, Momordica cabraei, Cassia spectabilis, Citrus medica, Terminalia superba, Ceiba pentandra and Ipomoea aquatica, formed another most significant species group. In highlighting those 12 species of interest, this study has direct bearing in drug design and innovation by the ethnopharmacological reasoning, thereby contributing to species selection and direction for prior chemical, pharmacological and clinical assessments leading to plant-based drug development that Africa needed for its pandemic pathologies.

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