Scholarly Journal of Agricultural Science Vol. 4(11), pp. 548-552 November, 2014 Available online at http:// www.scholarly-journals.com/SJAS ISSN 2276-7118 © 2014 Scholarly-Journals Review article Traditional consumption, therapeutic value and its derived dairy products of dromedary Camel (Camelus Dromedaries) milk in Somali regional State, Eastern Ethiopia: A Review Aleme Asres* 1 and Mohammed Yusuf 2 1 Department of Animal Sciences, Adigrat University, Ethiopia 2 School of Animal and Range Sciences, Haramaya University, Ethiopia Accepted 10 November, 2014 A comprehensive review on dromedary camel milk traditional consumption, therapeutic value and its derived dairy product in Somali Regional State, Eastern Ethiopia is reviewed. In the pastoral community manufacturing of derived dairy products still difficulties in our country. Problems associated with derived dairy product produced from camel milk are highlighted. Fresh and fermented camel milk products were found to provide various potential health benefits. Include a treatment for gastritis, asthmatics, stomach discomfort, HIV, hamot (kar), tuberculosis, fever, urinary problems, hepatitis, jaundice, common cold, dearbeh ("diarrhea"), daarta ("nausea") and diabetics, for corresponding diseases there are traditional ways of treatment and for some diseases even dosages were present in Somali Regional State, Eastern Ethiopia.. Key words: Dairy Products, traditional consumption, therapeutic value. INTRODUCTION According to the recent statistics by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the total population of camels in the world is estimated to be about 20 million, with Somalia having the largest herd worldwide (FAO, 2008). Camels live in the vast pastoral areas in Africa and Asia and divided into two different species belonging to the genus Camelus. Dromedary camels (Camelus dromedaries, one humped) that mainly live in the desert areas (arid), and Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus, two-humped) which prefer living in the cooler areas. The Bactrian species is domesticated in the East to the Northern China and in the West to Asia Minor and Southern Russia, including Mongolia and Kazakhstan (Farah, 1996; Yagil, 1982). On the other hand, the dromedary species widely occurs in the Middle East, North and East Africa, South West Asia and Australia. The total population of the dromedary species (domestic) worldwide is estimated to be about 15 million head *Corresponding author’s e-mail: almasres06@gmail.com. (Mukasa- Mugerwa, 1981) and Ethiopia possesses over 2.4 million dromedary camels that stand the country third in Africa in camel population (FAO, 2010). The majority of camels in the country are found in the drier areas of the Eastern part of the country and kept, among other things mainly for milk production in these areas. The annual camel milk production in Ethiopia is estimated 75,000 tones (Felleke, 2003).They produce milk for quite longer period even during dry periods compared to cattle (Kurtu, 2003). Camel milk is popular in Saudi Arabia and consumed as fresh and soured milk (Abu-Taraboush, Al- Dagal, and Al-Royli, 1996). Traditionally milk produced from camels is primarily used for direct consumption in raw state or fluid milk by the majority of pastoralists and some of consumed in the form of Dhanaan as fermented milk, in the form of tea and an ingredient for eating porage, soups, kinchie and pasta in Somali Regional State (Eyassu, 2007; Zeleke et al, 2007). The milk composition of dromedary camel is excellent from a nutritional view point (Gran et al., 1991). Camel milk also has valuable nutritional properties as it contains a high proportion of antibacterial substances and higher