Contribution to the ethnobotanical inventory of medicinal plants used for the treatment of typhoid fever in Adamaoua region, Cameroon

Since ancient Greek-Roman times, the use of plants to cure many human diseases is still common. The present ethnobotanical survey was conducted to contribute to the knowledge of medicinal plants used for the treatment of typhoid fever in three sub divisions of Vina division, Adamawa Cameroon. After having explained the importance of this study to interviewees, 41 traditional healers have agreed and delivered information regarding the medicinal plants they use as well as the different preparation and administration through a well- structured questionnaire that was given to them on this matter. Among 41 traditional healers whose attended this study, 32 were men and 09 were women. The ethnobotanical survey allowed the identification of 70 plants belonging to 38 families. With a frequency of 11/70, the Fabaceae family was the most represented followed by that of Rubiaceae and Asteraceae (04/70 each). The leaves are the most used parts (34.28%) followed by leaves + roots (14.28%) and the whole plant (12.86%). The majority of the recipes consisted of four to six plants (34.66), and were prepared by decoction (50%), with water as the main solvent (87.80%). 41.56% of typhoid preparations are administered twice daily for a duration of 14 days (46.77%). This is the first report on antityphoid herbal remedies in Vina division-Adamawa Cameroon. It would therefore be judicious for our government and research institution to investigate on their therapeutic properties in order to develop ameliorated and efficient phytomedicines

Chemical constituent, antibacterial and antioxidant activity of crude extract and oil fraction of L. abyssinica

The antibacterial and antioxidant activities of CH3Cl/MeOH crude extract and a nonpolar fraction from the CHCl3 phase of Ludwigia abyssinica were investigated using broth dilution method and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay respectively. Chemical composition was determined by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry using Agilent Technologies 7890A GC system-Agilent Technologies 5975C inert XL EI/CI MSD. Bioassays show that L. abyssinica is active on the different test organisms with the MIC ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 mg/ml for the crude extract and 0.2 to 0.5 mg/ml for the non polar oil fraction. The oil extract of L. abyssinica exhibited a good antioxidant activity with radical scavenging activity (IC50) = 89.18 µg/ml which is about 1.5 times the antioxidant activity of ascorbic acid used as control, while that of crude extract was 413.74 µg/ml. From the gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry analyses, 12 hydrocarbons were identified with octadecane (5.67%), pentadecane (6.87%) and squalene (57.18%) the major components. These results offer a plat form of using L. abyssinica for alternative and complementary medicine