Étude des plantes medicinales utilisees en soins de sante primaire dans la ville d’obala et ses environs

Abstract

We carried out an ethnobotanic study on the use of medicinal plants in primary health care in the town of Obala and its surroundings, Lekie Division, Centre Region in Cameroon. This study, based on the specialized method, helped us to identify the different diseases that traditional healers treat and the plants they use for this purpose. In the course of this study, we met 12 traditional healers, amongst whom there were 04 women (33.3%) and 08 men (66.6%); and we identified 15 pathologies divided into 07 groups, with the predominance of the group of infectious and parasitic diseases (46.6%). In this group, malaria is the disease that has the greatest number of recipes (26.31% or 5/19) and which is the most recurring disease. It is followed by the amebic dysentery; it has 04 recipes. After this group of infectious and parasitic diseases, there is the group of breathing system pathologies (20%). The other pathologies have a proportion equal to 1%. For the diseases identified, 28 recipes using 37 plant species belonging to 14 plant families have been identified. Leaves are the part of the plant which is the most used (44%) because they are easy to harvest and have many therapeutic virtues. They are followed by barks of trees. Several methods of preparation (decoction, pounding, maceration, crushing and pulverization) and administration (oral route, external use, chewing and topical ocular administration) were put in evidence. Decoction (66%) and oral route (84%) are respectively the methods of preparation and administration which are mostly used. Water is the vehicle the most exploited because it is used for the preparation of decoction. We have established, thanks to literature, a convergence of usage of the plants found in our study area with the ones of the other regions of Cameroon and Africa.