**6. Current status of herbal medicine**

World Health Organization estimated that 80% of the populations of developing countries still depend on plant drugs for their primary health care needs. According to survey of World Health Organization, the practitioners of traditional medicinal system treat about 8% of patients of India, 85% in Burma and 90% in Bangladesh. India comprises of 2.4% of the total geographical area of the world. The country accounts for an average of 8% of the total global biodiversity with approximately 49,000 species of plants of which 4,900 are endemic [27]. Approximately 2,65,000 species of seed plants exists on earth and less than half of these have been studied systematically for their chemical composition and medicinal value [28].

Greater part of drugs now available in the market is simple semi-synthetic derived from naturally occurring substances. Up to 50% the approved herbal drugs used today are from either directly or indirectly synthesized from natural products including plants, microorganisms, fungi and animals. According to an estimate, about 25% of the world pharmaceutical products find a significant degree of origin in indigenous communities, which represents more than a 2000 billion dollar share market [29].

In many developed countries, the percentage of the population which has used herbal medicines at least once is 48% in Australia, 70% in Canada, 42% in USA, 38% in Belgium and 75% in France. Malaysia, spent US\$ 500 million annually on herbal health care, compared to about US\$ 300 million on allopathic medicine. In USA, annual spending on conventional medicines was estimated at US\$ 2700 million. In Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, annual expenditure for herbal medicine is estimated US\$ 80 million, US\$ 2400 million and US\$ 2300 million respectively. In several parts of the world, outflow on herbal medicinal products is not only significant, but also growing rapidly [30].

The allopathic medicine has side effects and hazardous to human beings. After realizing toxicity and adverse effects of allopathic medicines, a shift in universal trend from synthetic to herbal medicines has been observed both in developed and developing countries [27]. The most important facts about herbal medicine are that these medicines have no side effect and available in low of cost. Therefore high dose of herbal medicine or wrong medicine consumed by patient mistakenly does not cause any adverse effect on the body.

#### **7. Conservation of medicinal plants**

Medicinal plants are the basic raw materials of pharmaceutical industries and is highly depends on medicinal plant for extraction of medicinally important compounds. During this time with the advancement of science and technology, over growing demand of pharmaceutical industries, the useful medicinal plants were over exploited by the men. So there is a need of conservation and propagation of valuable, rare and endangered medicinal plants by using advanced biotechnology methods [31].

Plants occupy a major sector of health care system and represent a most important natural resource. Therefore conservation of species is most effectively achieved through the management of the wild population and natural habitats. In most of cases medicinal plants either do not produce seeds or too small seeds. In order to

*Medicinal Plants and Its Pharmacological Values DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99848*

overcome these barriers *ex-situ* techniques can be used to complement *in-situ* methods and for some instance it may be appropriate for some species. So conservation of medicinal plants can be accomplished by the *ex-situ* that is outside the natural habitat by cultivating and maintaining plants through long term conservation of plant propagules in plant tissue culture repositories [32]. *In vitro* techniques have been increasingly applied for mass propagation and conservation of germplasm as it has superiority over alternative strategies. Hence there is a need for conservation of medicinal plant biodiversity for the present and forth coming generation by adapting the appropriate strategy with proper conservation method [33, 34].

Recently in India, several institutes and organizations involved in different aspects of drug discovery and conservation medicinal plant from natural resources. Initiative work designed for finding novel bioactive compound from plant, fungi, microbes etc. are set up by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Regional Research Laboratory (RRL), Jammu and Kashmir. Golden Triangle Partnership (GTP) in collaboration with Department of Ayush, CSIR and ICMR involved in the validation of traditional ayurvedic medicine for effective drug discovery. During last few decades, the Department of Biotechnology and Government of India has set up two Micropropagation Technology Parks at National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune and Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), New Delhi [16].
