Africans have suffered and are still suffering from several debilitating and crippling diseases with devastating effects on their health, economy, livelihood, and life expectation. There is still an unexpected and unacceptable mortality from malaria and other diseases such as trypanosomiasis, sickle cell anemia, dengue fever, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, and dracunculiasis, amongst several others. Owing to poverty and the inability of Africans to purchase developed and commercialized drugs, drug discovery, and treatment for these diseases has relied majorly on herbal remedies, traditional medicine, and ethnopharmacological practices. This Research Topic is aimed at harnessing research results, efforts, and reports towards drug discovery for these neglected and tropical diseases in Africa.
The problem to be tackled is “Why is there a dearth or absence of drugs for these African neglected diseases? What efforts are being made to tackle the prevalence, spread, and impact of the diseases? Is African traditional medicine sufficient or an impediment in handling or treating the diseases? What research is being developed in Africa or by Africans, universities, pharmaceutical companies, or any sponsored research towards addressing or finding cures for these diseases and curtailing their spread and effect on the people of Africa? What efforts are African governments or entrepreneurs making towards ameliorating the economic impact of these diseases and finding lasting solutions? Are African scientists on the path to discover cures for these African diseases?
In our Research Topic, we welcome studies that can contribute to addressing the above questions, and we would like to focus on the following subtopics:
• Medicinal plants used against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).
• Pharmacological and ethnobotanical practices used to treat NTDs.
• Bioassay guided or isolation of chemical compounds active against NTDs.
• Medicinal chemistry approaches to drug discovery for NTDs.
• Isolation and structure elucidation of bioactive natural compounds.
• Clinical studies, pharmacokinetics, and public health.
• Safety of traditional remedies and toxicology.
• Quality control and composition of traditional medicines.
• Anthropological and historical studies in ethnopharmacology.
• Metabolomics and genomics of traditional remedies.
• The interface of food and medicine, and nutrition in ethnopharmacology.
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One can find more information about the Article Type guidelines in the Ethnopharmacology section
here.
All the manuscripts submitted to this project will be peer-reviewed and need to fully comply with the
Four Pillars of Best Practice in Ethnopharmacology (you can freely download the full version
here).
