Potential Medicinal Plants to Treat Leprosy-A Review

Therapeutic plants have many different medicinal properties and thereby it helps in finding out a proper health care system. Since ancient times the drugs were derived mainly from the herbal origin either from the whole plant or from different organs like leaves, root, stem, bark, seed, flower etc., and some drugs are prepared from excretory plant product such as gum, resins and latex. Mycobacterium leprae is a bacteria which causes a chronic disease called Leprosy which damages the peripheral nervous system and skin. Slowly the disease develops and results in deformities and skin lesions, most commonly it affects the cooler places on the body like testicles, earlobes, eyes and nose. It was estimated that about two to three million people were permanently disabled because of leprosy. The highest number of cases was seen in India followed by Brazil and Burma. Leprosy is common in tropical, subtropical and temperate climates, and it affects humanity for over 4, 000 years.