Abstract
BackgroundTraditional medicine remains the only health care available in many rural areas in Madagascar like the rural community of Ambalabe, located in a very remote area in the eastern part of the country. With limited access to modern medicine, the local population uses medicinal plants to treat most diseases. In this study, we aimed to inventory medicinal plants used by local people and how those relate to the treatment of the most frequent diseases encountered in Ambalabe.MethodsWe interviewed participants in order to identify the most frequent diseases in the region and the medicinal plants used to treat them. The local physician was asked about the most frequent diseases, and ethnobotanical surveys to record medicinal plants and their uses, using semi-structured interviews and free listing, were conducted among 193 informants in local villages, of which 54 % were men and 46 % were women, ageing from 16 to 86 years. The local names, the uses of each plant species and the way they are prepared and administered were recorded and accompanied by herbarium specimens for identification. We also interviewed four traditional healers to elicit more details on the preparation and the use of plants.ResultsOur research allowed us to identify six most frequent diseases, namely diarrhea, malaria, stomach-ache, cough, bilharzia and dysentery. Among 209 plant species identified as having medicinal use, 83 species belonging to 49 families and 77 genera were used to treat these diseases. Our analyses highlighted the 11 commonly used species for their treatment, and also 16 species with a high fidelity level (FL ≥ 75 %) for each ailment. Diarrhea is one of the diseases with high number of species recorded.ConclusionsThis study highlighted the closed relationship between people in Ambalabe and plant species, especially when faced with frequent diseases. However, most of the species used were collected in the surroundings of the villages. Few species were from Vohibe forest in which a management system on the use of plant species was already established. Therefore, a sustainable use management should be considered for wild species from which medicinal plants are highly abundant.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13002-015-0050-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Traditional medicine remains the only health care available in many rural areas in Madagascar like the rural community of Ambalabe, located in a very remote area in the eastern part of the country
We aimed to identify the most frequent diseases encountered in Ambalabe, and to inventory the medicinal plants used for their treatment and how they are used
Local people used 83 different plant species belonging to 49 families and 77 genera to treat these six afflictions, i.e. an average of 17 species for each of them
Summary
Traditional medicine remains the only health care available in many rural areas in Madagascar like the rural community of Ambalabe, located in a very remote area in the eastern part of the country. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that an estimated 80 % of the population in developing countries depend on traditionally used medicinal plants for their primary health care [2]. It is the case in the rural and very remote area like the community of Ambalabe, in the Eastern part of Madagascar. People resort to self-medication by buying drugs from peddlers, or prefer to use traditional medicine, which is often the only accessible and affordable remedy [3,4,5], and often associated with poverty [6]
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