Some medicinal plants from Senegal used in the management of infectious diseases: evaluation of their antimicrobial and antiparasitic activities

Abstract

Infectious diseases with bacterial origin are one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with about 17 million deaths each year. Beside these bacterial infections, several parasitic infections deserve special attention due to a lack of effective treatments. Among these infections, human African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, and leishmaniasis have a strong impact on morbimortality and makes them a public health problem. These infectious diseases, which are part of the neglected tropical diseases, urgently need to be addressed through research and development of new antibiotics and antiparasitics. The search for new drugs can be based on plant biodiversity, which is an inexhaustible reserve of bioactive natural products. Africa, and Senegal in particular, is rich in many medicinal plants used by traditional medicine in the treatment of infectious diseases. [...