Department of Microbiology and Immunology

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Browsing Department of Microbiology and Immunology by Author "Awora, S."

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    Prevalence of Use of Herbal Medicines for the Treatment of Sickle Cell Disease in Africa: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
    (Elsevier, 2023-08-11) Awora, S.; Bongomin, F.; Kaggwa, M.M.; Pebalo, F.P.; Musoke, D.
    Introduction: Several herbal medicines have been reported to ameliorate sickle cell disease (SCD) complications in many African communities. However, no comprehensive review has evaluated the use of herbal remedies for treating SCD crises. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of the use of herbal medicines for the treatment of SCD in Africa. Methods: Following registration of the review protocol with PROSPERO (CRD42022346755), searched PubMed, Embase, Africa Journal Online, and Web of Science databases using the keywords ‘herbal medicine,’ ‘SCD,’ and ‘Africa’ on 1st August 2022 for peer-reviewed articles without language restriction. We included articles that reported the prevalence of herbal medicine use for SCD treatment in Africa and excluded qualitative studies, letters to editors, case reports, and editorials. All included papers were assessed using the modified Newcastle Ottawa quality assessment scale for observational studies. We used the random-effect model to calculate the pooled prevalence of herbal medicine use for SCD treatment with STATA 17.0. Results: Overall, 142 research articles were identified. Of this, three cross-sectional studies involving 702 chil dren with SCD from Uganda (n = 1) and Nigeria (n = 2) met the eligibility criteria and were included. Four hundred thirty-four individuals from the included studies used herbal medicines for the management of SCD. The prevalence of current herbal medicine use in individual studies ranged from 36.4% to 78.0%, with a pooled prevalence of 59% (95% confidence interval: 35.0–82.0, I 2 = 97.68%, P < 0.001). Conclusions: Almost three in five persons with SCD in Africa use herbal remedies as a form of treatment. However, there is limited data detailing the magnitude of the prevalence of use of herbal medicines for the treatment of SCD across different regions. Therefore, further studies are encouraged to explore the prevalence of use of herbal remedies for the management of SCD in Africa.