Compendium of medicinal plants for the ethno-therapeutic management of tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases

Abstract

Globally, plants are used in many cultures to treat Tuberculosis (TB) and TB related symptoms including cough and other respiratory diseases. Many articles on phytotherapy of tuberculosis in various ethnomedical practices have been reported. However, many of the works reported were focused on extraction techniques and dosage, while others focused on the anti-TB assays. This treatise is a compilation of medicinal plants that have been reported for the treatment of Tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases across different ethnic groups and cultures. It was hypothesized that efficacious plant families and species are more likely to feature frequently in the prescriptions of many ethno-therapy, and they are likely to contain promising compound(s) that could become drug candidates or drug leads. Literature reports available in the last 15 years were used to analyse the frequency of use of a total of 500 plant species belonging to 129 families. The profile revealed that the family Asteraceae is the most frequently used plant species (FC = 49, and ethnobotanical index of 0.0930) for the treatment of tuberculosis across the studied ethnic and cultural groups; followed by Euphorbiacae with FC= 32, then Rubiacae and Rutaceae with FC of 25 and 22 respectively. The findings highlight the medicinal importance of the plant family Asteraceae in ethnomedical remedies of tuberculosis and that the genera in the family are potential sources of anti-tubercular drug candidates worthy of extensive investigation.