Intl. J. of Mol. Evol. and Biodivers. 2014, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1-8
6
particularly
given
the
non-consistent
availability
of
particular
species (Alves and Rosa, 2006). According
to Alves and Alves (2011)
some medicinal animals are
being used for the same purpose suggest that different
species can share similar medicinal properties and
might indicate the pharmacological effectiveness of
these zootherapeutic remedies.
2.5 Risk of zoonotic disease
The knowledge of zoonotic disease (disease
transmitted between human and animals) was assessed
during the survey. Out of the total informants, 41
(45.55%) have the knowledge of zoonotic disease.
From the total female informants, 9 (40.9%) have the
knowledge of zoonotic ailments. From the total male
population 35 (51.5%) have the knowledge of
zoonotic disease. From the total population of male
informants, 35 (51.47%) are literate (can read and
write) and from the total female informants 10
(45.45%) can read and write. Pearson Chi-Square test
was computed to see whether there exist significant
association between academic status and knowledge
of zoonotic diseases. The association was significant
(
p
< 0.05). This implies that those informants who can
read and write have less risk of being infected with
zoonotic disease than those informants who are
illiterate. The use of medicinal animals is often
considered healthy by consumers, nevertheless,
zoonotic diseases have been increasingly mentioned in
the literature (van Vliet and Mbazza, 2011), as
exempli
fied by Schnurrenberger and Hubbert (1981),
who drew attention to the possibility of transmission
of serious and widespread zoonotic diseases such as
tuberculosis or rabies, an aspect that should be
considered whenever animal tissues from unknown
sources are handled and used as remedies (Bishaw,
1990; Tesfu et al., 1995).
2.6 Attitude of urban inhabitants towards use of
traditional medicine
A total of 60 individuals (85 % male and 15 % female)
of urban inhabitants were interviewed using
semi-structured questionnaire to assess their attitudes
towards traditional medicine practices. Out of the 60
informant, 36 (60%) (35 male and 1 female) have first
degree and 24 (40%) (8 female and 16 male) have
diploma.
From the total population of informants, 37 (30 male
and 7 female) (61.7%) individuals used traditional
medicine and the rest 23 (38.3%) (21 male and 2
female) do not used traditional medicine. Chi-Square
Test was computed to see the significance of
relationship between sex of informants and use of
traditional medicine. The test revealed that there is no
significant relationship (
p
>0.05). This might be due to
equivalent academic and living status between male
and female population of informants. Verma et al.
(2014) has reported that the difference in proportion of
traditional medicine user is resulted from the
difference in economic and academic status among
people.
Those who used traditional remedies have different
reasons, 11 (29.7%) answered due to accessibility of
remedy, 13 (35.1%) due to curability and 13 (35.1%)
due to affordability. The wide spread use of traditional
medicine among both urban and rural population in
Ethiopia could be attributed to cultural acceptability,
efficacy against certain type of diseases, physical
accessibility and economic affordability as compared
to modern medicine (Tilahun and Miruts, 2007).
Those who have rejected to use traditional remedies
have also different reasons, 3 (13%) answered due to
lack of standard dosage, 13 (56.5%) due to
inaccessibility, 5 (21.7%) due to less curability and 2
(8.7%) due to associated risk factors such as zoonotic
disease and other infectious diseases that could easily
transmitted.
Among the 37 informant who reported to use
traditional remedies, 14 (37.8%) prefer dermal
application (administration) and 23 (62.2%) prefer
oral administration of remedies.
The knowledge of zoonotic disease among the
informants of rural inhabitants was surveyed. From
the total informant population, 42 (70%) have basic
knowledge about zoonotic disease and 18 (30%) did
not have the knowledge at all. Chomel et al. (2007)
and Taylor et al. (2001) described that approximately
75% of emerging infectious diseases are caused by
zoonoses. More than 800 human pathogens are
zoonotic (Taylor et al., 2001; Woolhouse and
Gowtage-Sequeria, 2005). Some of these pathogens
may cause serious diseases in wild animals but, in
some cases, the animals act as reservoirs, without
