Abstract:
The effective treatment of wounds remains a major global
health challenge. Failure to heal or elongation of the wound
healing process results in increased financial and social stress
being placed on health institutions, care-givers, patients, and
their families. The occurrence of various forms of wounds
such as chronic and acute wounds, pressure ulcers, venous
stasis ulcers, and diabetic ulcers has increased over the years
in most countries, especially developed countries where life
expectancy has been increasing over timeand is accompanied
by geriatric diseases. Acute and chronic, non healing wounds
impose heavy financial and quality of life burdens on patients. Chronic wounds are normally characterized by intense
pain, infection, loss of function, and loss of mobility and may
lead to amputations and in some cases even death. With an
increase in the prevalence of wounds and the high cost of
orthodox medicines, most patients, especially those in developing
countries, resort to herbal preparations or remedies
which are believed to be readily available and cheap for the
treatment thereof. The urgent need for the identification of
effective, safe, and cost efficient wound healing promoters
which can be introduced into clinical practice is unequivocal. This has driven an increase in the search for potent,
cost effective wound healing agents from natural products
including medicinal plants.
