African medicinal plants show promise killing chemical-resistant cattle ticks
Tawana M, Sako T, Koza N, Ramatla T, Mbizeni S, Yawa M, Thekisoe O, Nyangiwe N.
Medicinal Plants
Cattle ranchers and small-scale farmers across Africa are watching chemical tick treatments fail in real time, and the plants growing around their homesteads may hold the replacement.
Ticks that infest cattle have evolved to shrug off the chemical sprays farmers use to kill them, creating a serious problem for livestock health worldwide. Researchers combed through thousands of studies to find African work on using medicinal plants as tick killers, ultimately analyzing 20 solid studies covering plants from 26 different families. The results are promising: plants from the daisy and mint families were most commonly tested, and 4 out of every 10 studies found those plants could kill ticks at high rates.
Key Findings
40% of the 20 qualifying studies reported high tick mortality from plant extracts; 35% reported moderate efficacy; 25% reported low efficacy.
Plants from 26 families were tested; Asteraceae (daisy family, n=7) and Lamiaceae (mint family, n=7) were most studied, followed by Fabaceae (legume family, n=5).
Only 20 studies out of 2,046 retrieved met inclusion criteria, revealing a major gap in African research on plant-based tick control.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A systematic review of 20 African studies found that medicinal plant extracts can kill cattle ticks resistant to chemical pesticides, with 40% of tested plants showing high effectiveness. The tick species targeted, Rhipicephalus microplus, has spread resistance to synthetic treatments globally, making plant-based alternatives increasingly urgent.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Acaricidal efficacy of medicinal plants against <i>Rhipicephalus</i> (<i>Boophilus</i>) <i>microplus</i> in Africa: A systematic review.
The widespread misuse of synthetic acaricides for controlling and preventing tick infestations and tick-borne pathogens has accelerated the development of acaricidal resistance in various tick spec...
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