TY - JOUR
T1 - Quality assessment of African herbal medicine
T2 - A systematic review and the way forward
AU - Orman, Emmanuel
AU - Bekoe, Samuel Oppong
AU - Jato, Jonathan
AU - Spiegler, Verena
AU - Asare-Nkansah, Samuel
AU - Agyare, Christian
AU - Hensel, Andreas
AU - Bekoe, Emelia Oppong
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - Background: In Africa, herbalism supplements allopathic medicine's efforts to ensure Universal Health Coverage attainment. This review was conducted to identify and to summarise current literature on methodological approaches used for quality control of herbal medicines in Africa, to evaluate the gaps associated with existing strategies within context of best practices, and make recommendations for future improvements. Methods: A systematic search was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Articles were screened and assessed for eligibility. Results: 118 articles were included into the study. There was a high preference for impurity profiling tests (77%) indicating the prioritization for tests that guarantee safety despite the limited analytical resources available. Other classes of tests reported included identification tests (29%), physicochemical tests (18%), and content assays (12%). Although standard methods exist in preparing samples for impurity tests, different techniques were observed in different studies, and this could lead to differences in analytical outcomes. Content assays focused on single marker assessments, which may be inadequate to comprehensively assess the quality of products. Conclusion: This review provides knowledge of existing strengths and challenges for herbal medicine quality assessments in Africa. For future it is recommended to implement more studies on contaminants (e.g. mycotoxins) and pharmaceutical adulterants. The use of chemometrics to develop analytical methods should be promoted. Also, stakeholders in the medicine quality industry in Africa need to effectively collaborate to establish a well co-ordinated and harmonized system to provide a sustainable framework for the GACP and GMP guided production and quality assurance of herbal medicines.
AB - Background: In Africa, herbalism supplements allopathic medicine's efforts to ensure Universal Health Coverage attainment. This review was conducted to identify and to summarise current literature on methodological approaches used for quality control of herbal medicines in Africa, to evaluate the gaps associated with existing strategies within context of best practices, and make recommendations for future improvements. Methods: A systematic search was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Articles were screened and assessed for eligibility. Results: 118 articles were included into the study. There was a high preference for impurity profiling tests (77%) indicating the prioritization for tests that guarantee safety despite the limited analytical resources available. Other classes of tests reported included identification tests (29%), physicochemical tests (18%), and content assays (12%). Although standard methods exist in preparing samples for impurity tests, different techniques were observed in different studies, and this could lead to differences in analytical outcomes. Content assays focused on single marker assessments, which may be inadequate to comprehensively assess the quality of products. Conclusion: This review provides knowledge of existing strengths and challenges for herbal medicine quality assessments in Africa. For future it is recommended to implement more studies on contaminants (e.g. mycotoxins) and pharmaceutical adulterants. The use of chemometrics to develop analytical methods should be promoted. Also, stakeholders in the medicine quality industry in Africa need to effectively collaborate to establish a well co-ordinated and harmonized system to provide a sustainable framework for the GACP and GMP guided production and quality assurance of herbal medicines.
KW - Africa
KW - Analytical methods
KW - Chemometrics
KW - Herbal medicines
KW - Pharmacopeial standards
KW - Quality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85137023352&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.fitote.2022.105287
DO - 10.1016/j.fitote.2022.105287
M3 - Review article
C2 - 36031027
AN - SCOPUS:85137023352
SN - 0367-326X
VL - 162
JO - Fitoterapia
JF - Fitoterapia
M1 - 105287
ER -