Ethnomedicinal study of plants used in the Uvira Territory (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the ethnomedicinal plant knowledge among people living in The Uvira Territory. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with and field observation in seven villages. The ethnomedicinal data was analyzed using the informant consensus factor (ICF), family importance value (FIV), and Jaccard index (JI). Sixty-nine medicinal plants belonging to 61 genera and 34 families were used to treat eight disease categories. Fabaceae was not only the dominant family but also a family with the high FIV. Decoction and pound were the most common methods of preparation, while leaves were the most used part. We compared this study with 24 other ethnomedicinal studies conducted in RD Congo and neighboring countries, and the results showed that the Jaccard index ranged from 0.57 to 10.94. The highest degree of similarity (10.94) was found with another study conducted in Congo, while the lowest degree of similarity (0.57) was found with a study conducted in Rwanda. The disease category for which there was the highest number of use (66) and plant species (39) was “diseases of the digestive system disorders and intestinal parasites” (ICF 0.42). The investigation of the plants used as drugs in the study area revealed that the population daily relies on medicinal plants to treat different diseases.