Ethnobotanical Study on Awareness of Medicinal Plants Used to Treat Urinary Tract Infection and Microbial Infections in Biharamulo District

Abstract

Medicinal plants have been interested in many researchers for overcoming a catastrophic disaster of antimicrobial resistance. This study aimed to identify medicinal plants for treating UTI through an ethnobotanical survey conducted in the Biharamulo district in the Kagera region in Tanzania. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to assess the awareness of society on UTIs and their medicinal plants. UTI herbs were collected and identified. The ethnobotanical data were analyzed using the Chi-square test in SPSS version 16. Participants' awareness was justified by the statistically significant difference of p-values < 0.05. The study found most participants to have an understanding of UTI and its herbs because they identified clinical signs (85.2%), mode of transmission and etiology (41%), UTI herbs (99.5%), and used herbs to treat UTI (92.8%). Out of the 42 medicinal plants identified for treating UTI, 29 (69%) had pharmacological supports for antimicrobial activities, which were attributed to their phytochemicals and ethno medical literature support for treating UTI and other related microbial infections; they belonged to 20 families whereby the dominant were Lamiaceae 17.2 %, and legumes are (10.3 %). This agreed with other studies that society knew UTIs and their medicinal plants. Ethno medical literature supported this study. The study results were significantly justified and supported the uses of identified medicinal plants for treating UTIs with antimicrobial efficacies, as traditional healers and herbalists claimed. Hence this study may provide a direction and scope for further discovery of new UTI drugs.