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Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya

Diseases of ear, nose and throat (ENT) often have serious consequences including hearing impairment, and emotional strain that lower the quality of life of patients. In Kenya, upper respiratory infections are among the most common infections encountered in outpatient facilities. Some of these infect...

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Autores principales: Njoroge, Grace N, Bussmann, Rainer W
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2006
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770906/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17192184
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-2-54
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author Njoroge, Grace N
Bussmann, Rainer W
author_facet Njoroge, Grace N
Bussmann, Rainer W
author_sort Njoroge, Grace N
collection PubMed
description Diseases of ear, nose and throat (ENT) often have serious consequences including hearing impairment, and emotional strain that lower the quality of life of patients. In Kenya, upper respiratory infections are among the most common infections encountered in outpatient facilities. Some of these infections are becoming difficult to control because some of the causing microorganisms have acquired antibiotic resistance and hence the need to develop new drugs with higher efficacy. Ethnobotanical studies have now been found to be instrumental in improving chances of discovering plants with antimicrobial activity in new drug development. In Kenya the majority of local people are turning to herbal remedies for primary health care needs. In most cases the sources of these remedies are undocumented and the knowledge about them passed orally form generation to generation, hence under threat of disappearing with current rates of modernisation. This study explored the traditional remedies used in managing various ENT diseases in seven districts of the Central Province of Kenya. The most common ENT conditions managed using traditional therapies include: common cold, cough, tonsillitis, otitis-media, chest pains and asthma. The results indicate that 67 species belonging to 36 plant families were utilized in this region. These plants were of varying habits; herbs (37.3%), shrubs (34.4%), trees (25.4%) as well as some grasses and sedges (3%). The traditional preparations were found to be made mainly from leaves (49%), roots (20.5%) and barks (12.5%). For each of the ENT conditions multiple species are utilized mainly as individual preparations but occasionally as polyherbal concoctions. In the case of common cold for example, 30 different species are used. Plants reported in this survey are important candidates for antimicrobial tests against ENT disease causing micro-organisms, especially those with antibiotic resistance.
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spelling pubmed-17709062007-01-17 Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya Njoroge, Grace N Bussmann, Rainer W J Ethnobiol Ethnomed Research Diseases of ear, nose and throat (ENT) often have serious consequences including hearing impairment, and emotional strain that lower the quality of life of patients. In Kenya, upper respiratory infections are among the most common infections encountered in outpatient facilities. Some of these infections are becoming difficult to control because some of the causing microorganisms have acquired antibiotic resistance and hence the need to develop new drugs with higher efficacy. Ethnobotanical studies have now been found to be instrumental in improving chances of discovering plants with antimicrobial activity in new drug development. In Kenya the majority of local people are turning to herbal remedies for primary health care needs. In most cases the sources of these remedies are undocumented and the knowledge about them passed orally form generation to generation, hence under threat of disappearing with current rates of modernisation. This study explored the traditional remedies used in managing various ENT diseases in seven districts of the Central Province of Kenya. The most common ENT conditions managed using traditional therapies include: common cold, cough, tonsillitis, otitis-media, chest pains and asthma. The results indicate that 67 species belonging to 36 plant families were utilized in this region. These plants were of varying habits; herbs (37.3%), shrubs (34.4%), trees (25.4%) as well as some grasses and sedges (3%). The traditional preparations were found to be made mainly from leaves (49%), roots (20.5%) and barks (12.5%). For each of the ENT conditions multiple species are utilized mainly as individual preparations but occasionally as polyherbal concoctions. In the case of common cold for example, 30 different species are used. Plants reported in this survey are important candidates for antimicrobial tests against ENT disease causing micro-organisms, especially those with antibiotic resistance. BioMed Central 2006-12-27 /pmc/articles/PMC1770906/ /pubmed/17192184 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-2-54 Text en Copyright © 2006 Njoroge and Bussmann; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Njoroge, Grace N
Bussmann, Rainer W
Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya
title Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya
title_full Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya
title_fullStr Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya
title_full_unstemmed Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya
title_short Traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ENT) diseases in Central Kenya
title_sort traditional management of ear, nose and throat (ent) diseases in central kenya
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1770906/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17192184
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-2-54
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