Popular medicinal plants used by the Bantu people and Pygmies living in the administrative territories of Beni and Lubero (DRC)

Abstract

Medicinal plants occupy the most preponderant place in households in Democratic Republic of the Congo. Indeed, more than three quarters of its population depend on natural resources to survive financially and health wise, due to economic issue and inability of some modern medicines to cure some diseases. An ethno-botanical survey was conducted in Beni and Lubero territories, where Bantu people and Pygmies live. It was done to identify the plant species used by both groups (Bantu people and Pygmies) in traditional medicine. Sixty Bantu people and pygmies were interviewed about the plant species they used traditionally to treat different diseases. Sixty-three different diseases were identified among them. Recurrent diseases were: Malaria (15 species for treatment), diarrhoea (11), colic (7), internal candidiasis and yellow fever (12), migraine (3), and rheumatism (4). Ten plant species were cited mostly: Allanblackia stanerana (used against 18 diseases), Dichrocephala integrifolia (15), R. communis (15), A. sativum (14), Achyranthes aspera (13), Bidens pilosa (13), Conyza sumatrensis (13), Canarium schweinfurthii (12). The Wallis test (χ2= 10.9; dl= 4; p-value: 0.028 ˂ 0.05) showed that the Bantu people and pygmies living in the same village in Beni and Lubero territories used different plant species as traditional medicines to treat the same diseases.