Raffaella Literature’s Update
The following message is courtesy of Dr Raffaella Ravinetto, Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, Belgium.
Ref: Ouoba K, Dori D, Semdé R. Dengue epidemic in Burkina Faso: concerns about the informal use of traditional herbal remedies. Pan Afr Med J. 2024 Feb 19;47:71. doi: 10.11604/pamj.2024.47.71.42323. PMID: 38708140; PMCID: PMC11068463.
Dear Friends,
We are happy to share this publication from colleagues in Burkina Faso, which puts on the table different aspects of potential public health interest, in relation to the use of traditional herbal remedies. See for instance this excerpts: “The population’s eagerness to use traditional herbal medicine in the context of the dengue epidemic in Burkina Faso, as was the case with the COVID-19 pandemic, is thought to be linked to the absence of conventional curative treatments for dengue worldwide, the lack of access to biomedical healthcare in the country and the perceived harmlessness of so-called natural remedies. This situation gives rise to enormous public health concerns, apart from those linked to the epidemic itself, because the popular use of traditional remedies is not without health risks, contrary to popular belief. Indeed, it has been reported in the scientific literature that the use of traditional.”
There are some relevant message we can take on:
(1) a recommendation to include traditional herbal remedies actively in surveillance systems, and to promote pharmacovigilance (PV) as a way to know better how these remedies are being used, etc.
(2) the difficulty in accurately identifying these products, in absence of something like a an international non-proprietary name (INN) or a brand name
(3) the need to regulate and study traditional herbal medicine, which is a common path in health-seeking behaviours, especially when other medicines are non-existing, unavailable or unaffordable.
(4) the warning that this market, too, can be affected by falsification.
(5) the importance of locally-generated knowledge on these themes (important, the authors are all from Burkina Faso), and a related recommendation to stimulate local studies on this.
Have a nice reading,
Raffaella & Albert