Afro Medicinal Plants a Promising Remedy for Sickle Cell Anemia

Background: Sickle cell anemia is a disease that affects largely Africans and people in the tropics. It affects an average of 7.74 million and the mortality rate was 376,000 in the year 2021. Sickle cell disease was discovered in 1910 by a Famous scholar Herrick who described it as a hematological (Blood) disease and nearly three decades later, in 1949, Linus Pauling discovered the pathology of sickle cell anemia. Through molecular studies we further learned that sickle cell disease is caused by certain abnormalities in the hemoglobin of the patient, which costs millions of lives, plant products offer hope.

Aims: The objectives were to determine the plants that are in use and the consensus clinical evidence about the plants and sickle cell diseases treatment. To provide easy access to consensus evidence to busy healthcare professionals and to educate the public.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Public Health, College of Health Science, Walden University, Minneapolis, USA, between July 2022 and October 2023.

Methodology: A systematic review supported by a community approach to intervention services and native medicine theories supported the study. Search engines were Safari, Google, Google scholar, and Firefox.

Results: Showed that while there were various approaches adopted by modern medicine to provide palliative care for persons with sickle cell diseases, which were directed at raising depleting nutrients, preventing infections and delaying the gelling point of the erythrocyte, no significant achievement has been made at reducing the disease and treating it effectively. Also, over 80% of the patients cannot afford the cost of the treatment. Thankfully, phytochemical compounds isolated from some medicinal plants- Carica papaya, Piper guineense, Cajanus cajan, Zanthoxylum zanthoxyloides, Terminalia catappa L, and formulations made from them such as Niprisan and Ciklavit, which have been approved for use for treating sickle cell diseases stands to be sustainable and efficacious offer hope. Outcome will bring a significant social change in local and global public health and economic activities.

Conclusion: Clinically tested phytochemical compositions of implicated plants, herbal preparations, and specific nutrients investigated in this study possess anti-sickling properties and a couple of the preparations have been approved for sickle cell disease treatment in Nigeria.