Ethnobotanical Survey on Awareness of Medicinal Plants Used for Treatment of Urinary Tract Infection in Biharamulo District: TanzaniaC

Abstract

Introduction: In overcoming a catastrophic disaster of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), many researchers are interested with safe and active antimicrobial medicinal plants. Objective: This study aimed to identify medicinal plants used for treatment of Urinary tract infection (UTI) through ethnobotanical survey, conducted in Biharamulo district at Kagera region in Tanzania. Materials and Methods: To assess the societal awareness on UTI and its curative herbs, semi-structured questionnaires were employed. UTI herbs were identified and collected. The ethnobotanical data were analysed by using Chi-square test in SPSS version 16. Awareness of participants were justified at the statistical significance difference of p-values < 0.05. Results: The study found most participants to have awareness on UTI and its medicinal plants, because they identified clinical signs (85.2%), mode of transmission and aetiology (41%), UTI herbs (99.5%) and most of them used herbs to treat UTI for 92.8%. Out of the 42 medicinal plants claimed and identified for treating UTI, 29 (69%) of them had pharmacological supported for treating UTI or related antimicrobial infections that were attributed to constituted phytochemicals in literature reviews. The 42 medicinal plants belonged in 20 families where by the dominant were Myrtaceae, Leguminosae and Lamiaceae, each one composed 15%. Therapeutically, S. guineense, S. cordatum, C. citrinus, T. mollis, T. cercea, X. caffra, A. muricata, P. granatum, J. mimosifolia and N. macrophylla was documented by the present study for elicit strong antimicrobial activities against UTI microbes. Conclusion: Findings from this study concurred with the previous ones that the society had awareness on UTI and its medicinal plants. The study results were significantly justified and supported the uses of selected medicinal plants for treating UTI with microbial efficacies as claimed by traditional healers and herbalists, hence this study might provide a direction and scope for further discovery of new UTI drugs.