Enhancing African health care by the establishment and utilization of multidisciplinary database for medicinal plants

Considering more than 80% of people in Africa use herbal medicines as their first choice for disease control, it is critical issue to assure the safety and efficacy of ethnobotanic herbal medicines. In order to secure the safety of herbal medicines and provide sustainable platform for the herbal medicinal practices in Africa, we are launching a new type of science and technique support program that is appropriate for African health care system. Based on the biodiversity and traditional knowledge of Tanzania and Kenya, state-of-the-art metabolomics and chemoinformatics technologies are involved to build multidisciplinary database for African medicinal plants. The critical information on the identification and qualification of herbal medicines in East Africa as well as known biological activities will be generated and combined to build essential scientific platform for the quality control of raw herbal materials and assurance of the safety and efficacy of medicinal plants.