Browsing by Author "Rutaro, Karlmax"

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    An ethnobotanical study of plants used for the treatment of malaria in Budondo sub-county, Eastern Uganda
    (Ethnobotany Research and Applications, 2020-01-30) Malinga, Geoffrey. M; Baana, Kalori; Rutaro, Karlmax; Atube, Francis; Opoke,Robert; Opika-Opika, Hector; Oryema, Christine
    Background:Malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in most developing countries, and in Uganda over 95% of the country is endemic with malaria. Given the increasing widespread resistance to current drugs, the use of herbal medicines is seen as a sustainable solution to malaria treatment. This study documented medicinal plants that are traditionally used for the treatment of malaria in Budondo sub-county, Eastern Uganda.Methods:The ethnobotanical survey was conducted between December 2017 to January 2018. A total of 273 household members were interviewed on knowledge and use of anti-malarial plants, using semi-structured questionnaires administered in five parishes of Budondo sub-county. Voucher specimen of each plant species were preserved at the Makerere University herbarium, Uganda.Results:Overall, 97.5% of the respondents had knowledge regarding the plants used to treat malaria. A chi-square analysis shows a significant association between respondents’ knowledge regarding anti-malarial plants and gender (p-value =0.008) and occupation (p-value =0.025) but not with age (p-value =0.379), educational status (p-value =0.066), average monthly income (p-value =0.419), and religious affiliation (p-value =0.064) of respondents. A total of 37 plant species, belonging to 25 plant families were used to treat malaria. The most cited plant was Vernonia amygdalina Delile (64.8%), followed byAloevera (L.) Burm.f. (41.9%), Callistemon citrinus (Curt.) Stapf (29.3%), Mormodica feotidaSchumach (22.0%), Cyphostemma adenocaule(A.Rich) wild & Drumm. (16.1%) and Eucalyptus globulusLabill. (15.4%). Among the plant parts, stem bark (99.6%) and leaves (90.8%) were the most frequently used. The habits ofthe plants encountered were shrub, tree, herb, rhizomes and climber. The commonest modes of preparation included boiling in water, squeezing fresh leaves, crushing and pounding, and chewing.Oral route/drinking was the most common mode of administration, followed by steam inhaling of vapours from the aqueous extracts and skin bathing.Conclusion:The present study shows that the people living in Budondosub-county traditionally use diverse flora to treat malaria. Further investigations are required to evaluate the potential toxicological effects and to isolate the active components of the reported plants whose antimalarial activities have not been investigated which could be developed into effective, safe and affordable anti-malarial medicines in the future
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    Diet acceptance and preference of the edible grasshopper Ruspolia diferens (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)
    (The Japanese Society of Applied Entomology and Zoology, 2018-02-23)  Malinga, Geofrey M.; Valtonen, Anu;  Lehtovaara, Vilma J.; Rutaro, Karlmax; Opoke, Robert; Nyeko, Philip; Roininen, Heikki
    The edible grasshopper Ruspolia diferens (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) gathered seasonally from the wild is a highly valued and an economically important edible insect, particularly in East Africa. To reduce the pressure on wild populations, a sus tainable mass production technique needs to be developed. Unfortunately, however, basic biological know-how on feeding habits of R. diferens is poorly understood, which poses a constraint on the development of mass-rearing technology. Here, we evaluated the acceptance and feeding preference of R. diferens for 16 cultivated or processed foods using no-choice and multiple-choice laboratory bioassays. The results indicated that adult R. diferens can eat a wide variety of foods but does not necessarily accept all the foods equally. Furthermore, our experiments showed that R. diferens has high ability to select diet among those available. The order of decreasing preference was wheat bran > germinated fnger millet > rice seed head > fnger millet seed head > chicken feed egg booster > sorghum seed head. Finally, our study indicated that sex and color morph are not associated with the order of acceptance and preference of diets in R. diferens. These results show potential foods that could be utilized for developing future mass-rearing methods for R. diferens.