Lemongrass (known as kisubi in Luganda) is a spice that Christine Alobo usually puts up and mixes in her tea every night. A resident of Seeta, Goma Division of Mukono District, Alobo uses lemongrass to spice her sugar-free tea as she strives to make the most of its health benefits.
For a long time, Alobo thought that lemongrass only worked as a spice. One evening in early May 2022, Teopista Nakitende, a friend, let her in on another option. Alobo, a farmer and midwife, was encouraged to plant lemongrass in her garden and around her home because of its ability to repel mosquitoes. Two years later, Alobo couldn’t be more grateful.
“We noticed that the buzzing mosquitoes were fewer within the fresh grass. This remedy does not stop them completely, but it reduces their ability to buzz and move from one place to another,” she told Sunday Monitor.
Alobo is one of the forces that has used herbal medicine in the fight against malaria, Uganda’s leading cause of death.
Constant and unstoppable heat is endemic in vast areas of the country and rears its ugly head during the country’s two rainy seasons, March-May and August-October. Stakeholders in the fight against malaria attribute its persistence to a shrinking resource envelope as well as an apparently resistant vector (fly) and malaria-causing parasite (plasmodium).
In two separate incidents in mid-April, Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng and Health Ministry Permanent Secretary Dr Diana Atwine expressed fears of over-reliance on the malaria vaccines that Dr Michael Baganizi, head of immunization at Dr. the ministry, said to begin in October.
“We are now seeing malaria affecting teenagers as well as our children. The vaccine we are getting only protects 50 percent. That means this is not the panacea,” Dr Aceng told the House on April 20.
This was minutes after the Deputy Speaker of the House, Thomas Tayebwa, who also doubles as the Patron of the Parliamentary Forum on Malaria, had led lawmakers and other stakeholders in the Malaria Walk in Kampala. The march was meant to raise awareness in a country where the burden of disease is still firmly on tropical diseases.
Uganda also uses Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) to control the tropical disease which is treatable but faces resistance in several places. For example, in March 2019, police in Butebo district learned that Fred Tuwache set fire to his house in protest against the government’s IRS. He is reported to have said that the substances sent by the Ministry of Health were poisonous to animals and humans.
Mr. Tayebwa, during the malaria march in April, indicated that other containment measures such as treatment were already draining government coffers with minimal results.
“This treatment will not work. Treatment is so expensive. The money we are spending to treat malaria is so much, yet we are losing so many young people,” he said of the disease, which in 2015 had a 42 percent parasitemia rate among children under five.
The Deputy Speaker of the House also reiterated the long-standing fear of misuse of donated long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, which are freely distributed to families to protect Ugandans from mosquito bites. Ugandans are prone to pesticides, but Dr Atwine warns that they “have an effect on the lungs” and adds that you run the risk of “getting[ting] cumulative poison dose.”
It is against this background that the government is pushing for the adoption of plants in the fight against malaria, something that even the opposition is popular with. On April 19, Christine Kaaya Nakimwero, Shadow Minister for Climate and Environment, along with Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, offered their unwavering support. Almost a year ago, on April 20, Dr Atwine had also rallied behind the plant-based approach.
“We need to find ways to improve our environment through the State Forestry. We want to see them advocate for trees in every home. We can plant trees that repel mosquitoes and it’s very simple,” said the senior account manager of the Ministry of Health.
As a result, Dr Peter Mbabazi, the coordinator of finance and multi-sectoral collaboration with the same ministry, listed the number of plants that the government encouraged Ugandans to plant, use and consume. He mentioned lemongrass, rosemary, lemon balm, garlic, onion and peppermint. He also listed basil, eucalyptus, lavender, and Lantana Camara.
The aforementioned plants emit an odor that tends to repel mosquitoes that would otherwise spread and increase malaria in communities.
Dr Jimmy Opigo, the head of the Malaria Control Program in the Ministry of Health, told Sunday Monitor that the government’s call for the adoption of plant repellents has picked up, with the support of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
“We are seriously promoting plant repellants. We have worked with kindergartens [bed] operators and CSOs, especially Rotarians, so that when we beautify our compounds, we ensure that medicinal plants coexist with small plants as well as food crops. The plants have chemicals in them,” he said, adding, “It’s picking up, people are using it now because plant repellants are friendlier. Most of these repellents contain lemon oil, which is good for the skin when applied.”
Dorothy Namubiru, Rotary Club of Kampala Central (District 9213) Vice President, said her fraternity uses the ‘Plant Your Balance Initiative’ to promote environmental protection and education, among others. Through this program, Rotarians manage tree nursery beds from which they receive seedlings to provide to communities. The plants distributed include eucalypts, which have a mosquito repellent effect. The Rotarians have since moved to schools, including Wanyange Girls Secondary School in Jinja district where they left in July.
Dr Opigo said the plant-based method is not entirely new as it was previously used by indigenous communities who smeared house walls with faeces believed to contain plant-repellent properties.
“They smeared it two to four times a year, which was called home decoration for malaria prevention, so they put it on the house as IRS,” he said.
The government has started a dissemination campaign to popularize the remedy in other parts of the country.
“It is well taken up in West Nile, the eastern parts and in Kampala districts,” said Dr Opigo, adding that the Ministry of Health was “trying to incorporate it into lotions and bath soaps.” Over time, most bath soaps will contain them. You bathe and the scent of the oil stays on the skin so that [mosquito] insects can’t get to you”.
This speaks to the power and great potential of plants to deal with mosquitoes and malaria. Various types of research show that the approach is good. In a study conducted in Owerri, southeastern Nigeria, lemongrass was tested as a mosquito repellent and used with other oils to create a lotion applied to the body parts of 12 participants. The study showed that lemongrass oil is mosquito repellent, with 74 percent protection against mansonia mosquitoes for more than two hours.
Another study titled Natural Plant-Based Mosquito-Repellent Products: A Potential Complementary Tool for Malaria Vector Control Intervention and Elimination in Zimbabwe is a piece of research that calls for the incorporation of plant-based methods into existing control measures.
Recognizing that fighting malaria requires a concerted effort, the Ugandan government has licensed the private sector to popularize the remedy. One of these is the owner of Roperfree, Yusuf Kawoya Kasumba, who uses his outlet in Kampala to process ingredients from lemongrass, eucalyptus and carrier oil.
Similarly, Swan Serenity, another local outlet in Uganda, uses eucalyptus extracts to produce repellents used as body and air sprays.
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