HYDERABAD, Feb 19: Around 69 per cent people in the country prefer herbal treatment or do self-medication with locally available medicinal plants, says Dr Mohammad Ibrar Shinwari from the Pakistan Museum of Natural History in Islamabad in his paper on ‘documentation of indigenous knowledge about medicinal plants of Pakistan’.

He was reading the paper in the national conference of plant scientists, organized by Institute of Botany and Pakistan Botanical Society at the University of Sindh.

Around 30 scholars presented their papers on various topics on the second day of the conference.

Dr Shinwari said that in Pakistan people preferred the herbal medicines due to high cost of allopathic medicines and inaccessibility of modern healthcare facilities.

He said medicinal plants could be found easily in Parachinar-Kurram agency, Orakzai agency, Darra Adam Khel-FATA, Kohat, Peshawar, Swat, Bhurban, Galiyat, Kaghan, Quetta, Zindra, Ziarat, Multan, Muchiara, Muzaffarabad and Margalla Hills of Islamabad.

He said that in remote areas like Naran, Sharan, Shogran, Zairan, Kalaya and Ziarat where access to modern medicine was limited, traditional healing systems played an important role in providing healthcare.