USE OF TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IN FEVER

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Malaria is the most common cause of fever in India and is an age old problem in India claiming thousands of life over the years 1,2. WHO launched its first ever comprehensive traditional Medicine strategy in 2002 strategy to assist countries to gather and preserve knowledge on such practices with the hope to develop a good database for finding antimalarial properties in future in wake of drug resistance. Majority of the rural and tribal in rural areas have vast store of knowledge and practice of traditional medicines as it is cheaper and easily accessible to them 3 4 5. Traditional Medicine often becomes the first source of treatment for these communities. The WHO estimated that 80% of the world’s population use botanical medicines for their primary health care needs, malaria treatment inclusive6. The current study was therefore undertaken with an objective to find out the knowledge and practices of traditional medicines among rural and tribal communities for fever and the factors influencing such practices.