| dc.description.abstract | Ethnoveterinary medicine has been practiced in East Africa for many years and is still being
practiced though on a declining trend, and a lot of valuable information can be lost or
distorted whenever a medicine man dies without revealing his/her knowledge. Due to
migration, regional conflicts and urbanisation, more and more of the old knowledge is slowly
getting lost and what the old/new is not valued any more. It is therefore essential to carefully
study, test and document the Bahima indigenous knowledge of disease management for
possible use in future as the use of indigenous medicinal plants varies from species to species,
tribe to tribe, place to place, disease to disease and even person to person.
The study was conducted in Nyabushozi county South-Western Uganda, consisted of a
survey and an experiment, and was aimed at retrieving information on phytomedicines and
ethnoveterinary practices. Participatory methods were used to retrieve the indigenous
knowledge about livestock management. From the survey, a rich knowledge of
ethnoveterinary practices was retrieved and a list of diseases with their characteristic clinical
signs, and the medicinal plants used to treat the diseases was drawn. Livestock contribute in
a major way to household food security and income. However the average livestock numbers
per household have fallen in the recent past due to population pressure and increased land
privatization. The main livestock production problems were lack of grazing land, lack of
water, livestock diseases, persistent drought, damage by wildlife and 'unsubsidized'
veterinary services. Indigenous veterinary practices are still practiced by Bahima
community.
An experimental trial was conducted to test the efficacy of plant anthelmintics as a measure
of the value of indigenous knowledge. Phytolacca dodecandra fresh green leaves and
Vernonia amygdalina fresh green leaves were compared with untreated controls and
Albendazole. Sixteen 6-9 months old goats, naturally infected with gastrointestinal
nematodes and were randomly distributed to four treatments. The faecal egg count reduction
test (FECRT) was used to estimate the drug efficacy by comparing worm egg count from the
goats pre treatment and post treatment. The egg per gram (epg) of the treated groups
decreased till 21 days post treatment.
The epg of the control group was steadily increasing from day zero through out the
experimental period. When compared with the control, P.dodecandra significantly (p <0.01)
reduced worm burden by 57% while V.amygdalina significantly (p <0.01) reduced the worm
burden by 65% by 21 days post treatment. There was no significant (p>O.05) difference
between the effect caused by P.dodecandra and V.amygalina presumably indicating that their
active principles have the same effect on worm burden. The V. amygdalina anthelmintic
effect on epg reductions closely followed that of Albendazole though significantly (p<O.Ol)
different. The test showed conclusively that the plant extracts from P.dodecandra and
V.amygdalina were effective in controlling Oesophagostomum spp, Haemonchus,
Nematodirus, Strongyloides, Cooperia, Trychostrongylus, Bunnostomum, Trichuris and
Strongylus spp.
It was concluded that indigenous ethnoveterinary knowledge of livestock disease
management among the Bahima community is still available. It was in addition established
that the use of P.dodecandra and V. amygdalina as dewormers resulted in a tremendous
reduction in worm burden. | en |
