Fig 1.
Results of literature search for articles pertaining to traditional medicines for treating rabies exposures, 1950–2021.
From the 415 total articles found in the literature search, 197 articles were duplicate articles, 155 were excluded after reviewing the abstract, and 13 articles were excluded after full-text review. Fifty articles were included in this literature review. *KAP is knowledge, attitude, and practices.
Table 1.
Plant part used for rabies by country (N, %).
Table 2.
Route of plants used for rabies by country (N, %).
Table 3.
Plants evaluated for treatment of mice inoculated with RABV in three controlled experiments.
Fig 2.
Diagram of frequencies of dog bites from rabid dogs and those bites causing clinical rabies.
(A) An estimated 19% baseline value of dog bites develop into clinical rabies in humans. (B) Traditional healers treat dog bite victims, and due to the 10% estimated baseline value of bites from a rabid dog, the traditional healers have an extremely high apparent success rate of 98% of victims surviving a suspected rabid dog bite (diagram showing a population of 100).
Table 4.
Probabilities of rabies deaths and treatment apparent success rates for rabies exposures by traditional medicine and modern medicine scenarios.