Vet World   Vol.11   February-2018  Article-8

Ethnoveterinary treatments for common cattle diseases in four districts of the Southern Province, Zambia

Background and Aim: Ethnoveterinary knowledge has rarely been recorded, and no or limited effort has been made to exploit this knowledge despite its widespread use in Zambia. This study documented the types of plants used to treat important animal diseases in rural Zambia as a way of initiating their sustained documentation and scientific validation.

Materials and Methods: The study was done in selected districts of the Southern Zambia, Africa. The research was a participatory epidemiological study conducted in two phases. The first phase was a pre-study exploratory rapid rural appraisal conducted to familiarize the researchers with the study areas, and the second phase was a participatory rural appraisal to help gather the data. The frequency index was used to rank the commonly mentioned treatments.

Results: A number of diseases and traditional treatments were listed with the help of local veterinarians. Diseases included: Corridor disease (Theileriosis), foot and mouth disease, blackleg, bloody diarrhea, lumpy skin disease, fainting, mange, blindness, coughing, bloat, worms, cobra snakebite, hemorrhagic septicemia, and transmissible venereal tumors. The plant preparations were in most diseases given to the livestock orally (as a drench). Leaves, barks, and roots were generally used depending on the plant type.

Conclusion: Ethnoveterinary medicine is still widespread among the rural farmers in the province and in Zambia in general. Some medicines are commonly used across diseases probably because they have a wide spectrum of action. These medicines should, therefore, be validated for use in conventional livestock healthcare systems in the country to reduce the cost of treatments. Keywords: cattle, ethnomedicines, traditional farmers, Zambia.

Keywords: cattle, ethnomedicines, traditional farmers, Zambia.

How to cite this article: Syakalima M, Simuunza M, Zulu VC (2018) Ethnoveterinary treatments for common cattle diseases in four districts of the Southern Province, Zambia, Veterinary World, 11(2): 141-145.

Received: 12-07-2017  Accepted: 11-12-2017     Published online: 08-02-2018

Corresponding author: Michelo Syakalima   E-mail: michelo.syakalima@nwu.ac.za

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2018.141-145

Copyright: Syakalima, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.