World Health Organization drug utilization

With over 250,000 species, the plant kingdom contains biodiversity which reflects known and novel compounds with potential therajjeutic activity (2,82,83). Furthermore, the World Health Organization has estimated that 80% of people in developing countries are dependent upon plant-centered traditional medicines for their primary health care (84). The examples of quinine and artemisinin cited above illustrate the proven utility of compounds from plants in the treatment of malaria. Moreover, it is likely that additional plant-derived antimalarial drugs await discovery since the literature indicates that in vivo or in vitro antimalarial activities have been identified in a broad and varied spectrum of botanical families (85-92). 

D. Capella, Descriptive tools and analysis, in Drug Utilization Studies Methods and Uses, M.N.G. Dukes, ed.. World Health Organization, Copenhagen, 1993. 

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