2.2 Traditional Medicine
2.2.3 Medicinal Herbal Market
extra proof to meet regulatory requirements (WHO, 1998). Calixto (2000) also suggested that plant medicines that are used for treatment, prevention, diagnosis and mitigation of diseases must be registered and regulated as pharmaceutical product with proven safety and efficacy.
Herbal medicine has been widely acknowledged as a critical resource that can be harnessed to become either another source of health care or complement the national health care system set up at all levels of health care delivery. As a result of the strategic importance of herbal medicines in health care delivery worldwide, WHO has been supporting member countries by designing strategies and policies to be followed to bridge the gap created by modern medicine.
tendency towards self- medication,
high cost of modern medicine,
improvement in quality, safety and efficacy of herbal medicine, and
perception that herbal therapies are more effective where orthodox health care has failed.
Herbal medicine is more often than not the only cheaper source of treatment, especially, for the poorest section of the society. In Ghana and Kenya, the cost of treatment of malaria for a course of allopathic anti-malaria drugs amounted to an average out-of-pocket spending of about US$6 per annum. In contrast, the cost of malaria treatment with herbal medicines was more affordable relative to other forms of health care and could even be paid in kind or with a physical asset (WHO, 2002b). It has also been pointed out that the expenditure on treating malaria at the clinic in Ghana was around US$1.60 whilst the cost of self-treatment with plant medicine was only US$0.10 (Ahorlu, 1997 cited by WHO, 2002b). A study also suggests that as much as 58 percent of adults in America who consumed traditional herbal therapies perceived that they were less costly relative to conventional drugs (Johnston, 1997).
Moreover, research conducted by Adjei (2013) in Wassa Amenfi West District in Ghana indicates that herbal medicine is potent for treating conditions like infertility, malaria, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), sexual weakness, piles, waist pains, epilepsy, menstrual pains, chronic skin diseases, hernia, bone fracture, arthritis and boils. Likewise, two in every five Americans (42%) were of the opinion that plant medicines can effectively cure diseases like cancer (Johnston, 1997).
In addition, in Mali, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria plant medicines were used as primary therapy for more than 60 percent of children suffering from high fever (WHO, 2003). It is estimated that between 30% and 50% of the total consumption of medicine in China was produced from traditional herbal preparations (ibid). Indeed, phyto-medicine had been the source of medical care of about 40 percent of the urban population and over 90 percent of rural dwellers in China (Srivastava et al., 1996).
It has also been suggested that 35 percent of outpatients and 22 percent of inpatients of rural people living in China were treated with traditional herbal medicine (WHO, 1998). Similarly,
in South Asia, out of the total population of one billion, 800 million depended on plant medicines for medical care (ibid). The demand for plant medicines in industrialised nations to address primary health care needs increased steadily due to their efficacy, safety and largely due to lesser side effects (Kamboj, 2000). The author is also of the view that herbal medicines are also suitable for managing age-related diseases, such as, memory loss, osteoporosis which are more prevalent in most advanced economies.
These factors have accounted for the rise in the price of plant medicines in the global market and have attracted a considerable number of multi-national pharmaceutical companies to commercialise herbal medicines (Calixto, 2000). WHO (2003) pointed out that about 90 percent of people in Germany had used herbal therapies at one time in their lifetime, while 70 percent of the population in Canada had also consumed herbal remedies at least once.
The world market for herbal market was higher than US$60 billion (WHO, 2003) and was increasing exponentially. It is also estimated that the market for herbal remedies in Europe was about US$7 billion in 1997 (Calixto, 2000), and between the period of 2003 and 2004 a total value of US$5 billion was mobilised from the sale of medicinal herbal products in Western Europe (WHO, 2008). Johnston (1997) noted that nearly 60 million Americans over the age of 18 years had used herbs to fight against insomnia, burns, colds, allergies, headaches, depression and rashes. The author further stated that the resultant boom in demand for herbal remedies had about US$3.24 billion market for traditional health services.
In China, the sale of medicinal plant products amounted to US$14 billion in 2005, while in Brazil, the total sales revenue was US$160 million in 2007 (WHO, 2008). Andel, Myen, and Onselen (2012) pointed out that a total amount of US$7.8 million was realised from the sale of 951 tons of crude medicinal plant products in 2010 in the Ghanaian market. Medicinal plant products have also contributed significantly to China`s pharmaceutical market. For instance, medicinal plant products contributed 33.1 percent share in the pharmaceutical market in 1995 (WHO, 1998).
In Germany and France, the sale of herbal medicines in the European market was estimated at around $6 billion in 1991, while in United States the turnover was approximately $4 billion (Kamboj, 2000). In Hong Kong, it was estimated that over US$ 260 million worth of herbal medicines were imported yearly, and more than 900 processed and raw medicinal plant products were distributed in the herbal stores (WHO, 1998). It is also reported that the sale of
herbal medicine known as “Kampo medicine” rose from US$1.42 billion in 2007 to US$1.47 billion in 2008 (WHO, 2012). Furthermore, a total of US$1.12 billion was realized from the sale of CAM in 2008 in Australia (ibid).
According to Calixto (2000) herbal medicines were widely used in Germany for circulatory disorders (15%), fatigue and exhaustion (12%), common influenza (38%), headache (25%), stomach ulcer (34%), cold (66%), intestinal and /or digestive disease (25%), nervousness (21%), bronchitis (15%) and skin disease (15%).
Likewise, the plant medicine market in India was about US$1billion, while the export revenue from plant-based crude medicine was around US$80 billion (Kamboj, 2000). Moreover, it is recognized that India has a well-documented rich culture and notable practical knowledge in traditional herbal medicine. However, it has been emphasized that the role of less-developed nations in the international trade of medicinal plant products is insignificant due to poor quality and the inability to meet global standards (Sharma et al., 2010).