Ethnobotanical Survey on Medicinal Plants for Treatment of Covid-19 Symptons on Human Used by Indiginious People of Sekhukhune, Limpopo, South Africa

Ethnobotanical Survey on Medicinal Plants for Treatment of Covid-19 Symptons on Human Used by Indiginious People of Sekhukhune, Limpopo, South Africa

*Dr Jacobus Kori Madisha

Limpopo Education, 84 Limpopo Street, Modimolle, South Africa

*Corresponding Author 

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.90300214

Received: 11 June 2024; Review 28 June 2024; Accepted: 02 July 2024; Published: 08 April 2025

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has been termed as the most consequential global crisis since the World Wars. The first line of defences against the COVID-19 spread are the non-pharmaceutical measures like social distancing and personal hygiene which only reduce the spread.  In this study, an ethnobotanical survey was conducted to document the indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants used to treat Covid-19 . Using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, ethnobotanical data were collected from 35 traditional healers in  Sekhukhune  region. The results showed that 47 plant species were used to manage respiratory livestock diseases. Plant leaves were commonly used, being crushed in water, and administered orally or topically. During the survey, it was noted that this forty seven  plants were traditionally used by indigenous people  to treat various human and veterinary diseases such as basic first aid for pneumonia, respiratory, flu, bronchitis, tonsillitis, influenza ,TB and chronic conditions like anthrax or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The information provided in this study would bring new insights on the development of environmental friendly, effective medicines and vaccines to control human and veterinary diseases in the future especially the covid-19. Future research directions for data-driven COVID-19 research are also debated. We hope that the article will provide the scientific community with an initiative to start open source extensible and transparent research in the collective fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Covid-19, Pandemic, Perception, Stress, Transmission, COVID-19, Infectious disease

INTRODUCTION

One can track day by day news about the number of new cases and deaths resulting from this respiratory disease since its very commencement in China to several hundreds of thousands of cases in over one hundred countries worldwide. In December 2019, a novel virus named COVID-19 emerged in the city of Wuhan, China [5]. In early 2020, the COVID-19 virus spread in all continents of the world except Antarctica, causing widespread infections and deaths due to its contagious characteristics and no medically proven treatment. After the outbreak of the novel corona virus disease (n-Covid-19), the socioeconomic status, working schedule, psychological behaviour and overall lifestyle of people of the entire world has been changed in a great scale [4]. As a part of these measures, all the educational institutions were closed, different hospitals were prepared for isolating the Covid-19 patients, all type of public gatherings were banned and different law enforcement organization worked together to reduce the transmission of the virus [9]. However, the cause of the fear was related with several factors which includes brittle healthcare management systems, few test rates, weak healthcare infrastructures, fragile planning and implementation by the governments [8]. The system is fragmented and the government hospitals are not usually furnished with good equipment. Private hospitals provide good services but limited to rich people only. Due to the lack of Covid-19 preventing equipment, most of the private hospitals remained closed [10].

The COVID-19 virus has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) with more than ten million cases and 503862 deaths across the world as per WHO statistics of 30 June 2020  [1]. COVID-19 is caused by Severe acute respiratory syndrome Corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and was declared pandemic by WHO on March 11, 2020. The cure to COVID-19 can take several months due to its clinical trials on humans of varying ages and ethnicity before approval. The cure to COVID-19 can be further delayed due to possible genetic mutations shown by the virus [2]. The pandemic circumstances is distressing billions of people socially, economically, and medically with drastic changes in social relationships, health policies, trade, work, and educational environments. The global pandemic is a menace to human the general public and calls for instantaneous actions. The COVID-19 pandemic has motivated the research community to aid front-line medical service staff with cutting edge research for mitigation, detection, and prevention of the virus [3].

The main symptoms of these disorders are often very similar  in all mammals and are manifested in the following ways: Fever ,Coughing, Shortness of breath, Trouble breathing, Fatigue, Chills, sometimes with shaking, Body aches, Headache, Sore throat, Congestion/runny nose, Loss of smell or taste, Nausea, Diarrhoea. Some people who are hospitalized for COVID-19 have also have dangerous blood clots, including in their legs, lungs, and arteries [4,5]. Imran et al. [6] exploited the fact that cough is one of the major symptoms of COVID-19. What makes this exploitation process complex, is the truth that cough is a symptom of over thirty non-COVID-19 related medical conditions. Breathlessness or shortness of breath is a symptom in nearly 50% of the COVID-19 patients which can also indicate other serious diseases such as pneumonia [7]. Automated detection of breathlessness from the speech is required in remote medical care and COVID-19 screening applications. Patient speech can be recorded for breath patterns with a simple microphone attached to smart devices. Abnormality related to COVID-19 can be detected from the breath patterns.

The Covid-19 treatment is dedicated to pharmacologic therapies, their mechanism(s) of potential benefit, safety considerations and optimal study design for planned and ongoing clinical trials [22,23,24] .The focus is on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine- two oral drugs that have been available and used widely for the prevention and treatment of malaria and in the management of autoimmune infections. Both drugs are currently inexpensive [25,26,27,28,29,30].The public health emergency caused by Covid-19 is a call to action as the scientific community embraces its role and shows through selfless rigor, collaboration, compassion and resolve the power of science to heal and to comfort [22,23].In the process of seeking answers to complex questions of import near and far we must endeavour always to be guided by facts and both irrefutable and reproducible scientific evidence [23,24].

Medicinal plants have always played a significant task within the traditional health care system of South Africa. In the rural Sekhukhune area of the Limpopo Province, South Africa, veterinary professionals   as well as a state sponsored animal health care  are unavailable. Limited research has, however, been conducted on the importance of traditional healing  on animal health care  in the communities in Sekhukhune. It is clear, therefore, traditional healing is a  practice in this area due to pressure of lack of other options in the community of different  animal health care. The conducted an overall study of the traditional healers on human use only of Limpopo and recommended further research with larger sample sizes for each municipality in order to verify their findings [26].This research will facilitate future scientific authentication through  animal model pharmacological and phytochemical studies.

Theoretical  perspective

Ethnobotanical studies emphasis on the multifaceted joining amongst indigenous occupants and vegetation, comprising the perceives, preparation and ethnic theories supplementary with diverse procedures of custom [11,14].Since of the recent actions concerning the spread of the  corona virus and for the reason that our scientists have struggle discovering its medication, this study can offer undeveloped evidence about remedial plants that people use to pleasure communal infections connected to the symptoms of COVID-19 and conemporary the status of therapeutic plants [13,14].

METHODS

Description of study area

The study was conducted in five local municipalities Elias Motswaledi, Ephraim Mogale ,Tubatse, Fetakgomo and Makhuduthamaga. of the Sekhukhune District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. Geographically Sekhukhune District lies between 24°50′S  and  29°50′E   (Fig. 1). The district is located in the south east part of Limpopo Province, and covers an area of 13,528 km², making it the largest district in the province. A large portion of the district is identified as rural areas. Semenya et al. (2013) [19] noted that the high floristic diversity of the area coupled with high unemployment rate resulted in a heavy reliance of natural resources such as plants to meet livelihood needs. The vegetation of the district was classified by  as aris-semi savannas .It is characterized by a mixture of trees, shrubs and grasses. This type of vegetation has provided a diverse flora with rich medicinal plants that the people of the study areas have always used to treat many illnesses. The ethnic group use herbal medication either alone or in combination with orthodox medicines for the treatment of several infections [36,37].

Figure 1 South Africa

Figure 2 Sekhukhune District Municipality

The Study area population

The study was conducted in the Sekhukhune district, in Elias Motswaledi, , Ephraim Mogale , Tubatse, Fetakgomo, and Makhuduthamaga in Limpopo province in South Africa. The surveyed district is inhabited by  Black African  98.6%, Coloured 0.1%,Indian/Asian 0.2%,White  1.0% .Black people Northern Sotho 82.2%,Southern Ndebele 4.4%,Zulu 3.3%,Tsonga 2.0%, Other 8.1% mostly from Bapedi ethnic group, as well as few Ndebele. The Bapedi ethnic group constitutes the largest cultural group in the Limpopo Province(South Africa),comprising 57% of the total provincial population(Limpopo Provincial Government,2012)The study was ,however, restricted to the area around Sekhukhune in order to ensure that healer interviewed, livestock owners, elderly were Sepedi speaking and use mountain, bush and river as their closest source of medicinal plants.

Data collection

The study was ,however, restricted to the area around Sekhukhune in order to ensure that healer interviewed were Sepedi speaking and use mountain, bush and river as their closest source of medicinal plants. The vegetation of the district was classified by  as aris-semi savannas [32]. It is characterized by a mixture of trees, shrubs and grasses [33] . This type of vegetation has provided a diverse flora with rich medicinal plants that the people of the study areas have always used to treat many illnesses. The ethnic group use herbal medication either alone or in combination with orthodox medicines for the treatment of several diseases [20]. Most of people live in the rural area in Sekhukhune, hence use of plants for corona treatment with symptoms such as: Fever ,Coughing, Shortness of breath, Trouble breathing, Fatigue, Chills, sometimes with shaking, Body aches, Headache, Sore throat, Congestion/runny nose, Loss of smell or taste, Nausea, Diarrhoea Fourteen villages  were selected from around Sekhukhune district. Villages further away were not used, due to financial constrain. Face-to-face meetings were held with individual  traditional healers. The reasons for the one on one  meetings were to introduce the project, to determine how active traditional healers were in the area and to enlist them for the study. The traditional healers included in this research were of the Bapedi tribe as they are the dominant cultural group custodians of plants remedies in the Limpopo Province South Africa.

Field survey

This survey focused on the use of traditional plant resources with specific reference to the treatment of respiratory infections on animals. Fieldwork was performed between 01 April 2021 to 30 July 2021. Collectively, 35 participants were interviewed after receiving their prior informed consent. Data was collected from native indigenous health practitioners and local participants (female and males of different ages, experiences and education levels). During field surveys, face to face interviews and semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The questionnaire was explained in Sepedi, the local language. The questionnaire was divided into sections that relate to various aspects of respiratory infections/corona virus  such as local names, medicinal plants use, collection sites, growth forms, plants part used, preparation methods, dosage, combinational uses and toxicity of reported plants. Documentation of data while field survey was evaluated and organized by usage of quantitative  and qualitative analysis. In addition, data was compared with previously published research articles on alien plants uses with higher medicinal values for various infections.

Ethical compliance

The present study was carefully designed with strict compliance of bio-ethics and approved by the ethics Committee  of  University Pretoria, South Africa under the approval No REC029-19. Prior to data collection, a brief group discussion was held with the participants for agreement, to tell the objectives of research and to guarantee the safety of indigenous knowledge. These practices clear the aim of research and develop confidence in participants so they give reliable knowledge without any hesitation. Initially, 50 participants were selected of them were but among them, 5 were hesitant in providing knowledge, and 10 could not be located during the data collection due to personal commitment, leaving a total of 35( male 29 and  females 21)  participants for data collection. This 5  traditional healers were prepared to identify no more than five medicinal plants and their uses. These healers informed the researcher that they were unwilling to divulge information about certain medicinal plants, the properties of which they considered to be very powerful. They clearly wished to keep this knowledge to themselves as something belonging to their own private domain. The ability to use plants of such purported potency apparently serves as these healers’ speciality trade marks in their communities, conferring upon them the status of being the best among their peers. All  plants  in this survey are  alien listed by the biodiversity action plan for control. The native communities of the area have   knowledge about the use of these plants and but not the dangers the can cause to the ecology of their area.

Table 1 Demographic Data of Participants

Data analysis

The collected datasets were captured in MS Excel 2013 and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Different quantitative tools such as Frequency of citation (FC) and relative frequency of citation (RFC), Jaccard index (JI), Chi-square test, Family importance value (FIV), Fidelity Level (FL), Informant Consensus Factor (ICF) and Use Value (UV) were used to analyse the importance of medicinal plants and informants’ knowledge about categories of respiratory infections.

Use value (UV)

Use value is calculated to assess all probable usage of plant species. UV of plants gives a quantitative analysis for plant citation. UV tells the relative importance of plant flora recognized locally. UV was analysed according to [15].

UV =u/N

Where u is the total participants stating various uses of a plant and N is whole number of participants. UV is usually (1) if the number of usages is greater, and (0) if the usage report for plants species is less. UV not deliver data on multiple or single usage of plant flora is considerably low. UV does not deliver any data on the single or multiple uses of plant species.

Frequency of citation (FC) and relative frequency of citation (RFC)

FC is used for evaluating the most preferred plants or more used plant species. RFC was analysed to intricate the knowledge of traditional flora about usage of therapeutic flora in the study site.

RFC = FC/N          (0 < RFC < 1)

Where RFC is denoted by relative frequency citation, FC (Frequency of Citation) is the number of participants who stated the plant flora and N is whole number of informants [39].

RESULTS

Socio-demographic characteristics of participants

Communally 35 participants were selected from several villages of Sekhukhune district ,Limpopo, South Africa. The majority of traditional healers were males (71%). Based on age, the participants were divided into seven groups ,36–46 (8%),47–57 (17%), 58–68 (20%), 69–79 (32%), 80-90 (17%) ,90-100 (6%). Participants constitute, 30 herbalists, 4 retirees and  1 housewives . Regarding education, 29% of the participants were uneducated, 37% of the had attended primary school, 20% secondary education level, 6% tertiary education and only 8% of participants had attended universities. The majority of traditional healers (44%) in the study area were married, followed by single (37%), widowed (17%) and 2% divorced. Most of the participants were living in rural areas (91%) and only 9% living in urban areas, the plant flora was herbs 51%, followed by shrubs (23%)followed by trees (18%) and lastly climber (8%). The  28  medicinal plants belonged to 17 families, with Fabaceae (5 species),  Asteraceae (4 species)  represent the most dominant family in this survey site followed by Rutaceae, Anacardiaceae with 2 species  each and the rest with one (table 3).

Plant parts used in herbal medicines

Among the different parts of medicinal plants used by traditional healers, the underground parts (root, rhizome, tuber, corn, leaves) were most frequently used to make the prescriptions for healing treatments, while the whole plant and leaves were second and third respectively. The most sustainable use of the plants to ensure viability is to use leaves to avoid the threat of extinction of most of the medicinal plants. Tabuti  mentioned that the uses of root and tuber parts can threaten medicinal plant populations or species viability. The interview result on different plant parts utilized revealed that leaves (60,7%) were reported to be the most frequently used plant part to prepare herbal medicine either by singly or mixes by other plant parts. Leaves were followed by roots (14,28%),whole (10,71%) followed by bark and seed with (7,14%) contributed (Fig.1).

Figure 1 Parts used

Collection sites

Plants were mostly harvested from roadsides (41%), followed by Abandoned land(23%), disturbed habitats(15%),home gardens (10%),mountain 8% and Rivers 3%  as sources of medicinal plants (Fig. 6).

Collection sites of  plant in Sekhukhune District

Figure 2 Collection site

Figure 3 Symptoms of Respiratory infections

Quantitative  ethno veterinary  analysis

Fidelity level

High FL was observed for treatment of coughing and flu. The plant used  Artemisia afra (0.98), Aloe marlothii (0.98), Citrus limon ( 0.96), Aloe aborescens (0.95) Terminalia sericea (0.94), Elephantorrhiza Elephantina(0.91), Lippia javanica (0.89) , Tarchonanthus camphoratus (0.87), Senna italica (0.86),Senna italica  (0.86),Pterocarpus angolensis (0.79) (Table 2).

Use value

Plants with the highest UV values were Aloe marlothi (0.98) ,Artemisia afra ( 0.98), Citrus limon (0.96).The lowest UV was on Alepidea amatymbica ( 0.21) Zanthoxylum capense (0.22) each with a UV value of 0,28 and 0.4 (Table 2). Use value calculation of Syzygium cordatum (0.14)  was not considered because of less than ten use-report.

Relative frequency of citation (RFC %)

The RFC represented the prominent species used for respiratory related infections based on the ratio between the number of participants (FC) for a plants and the overall number of participants in the research survey.RFC ranged from 0 to 0.95 and we classified all species into 3 groups: RFC 0. to 0.35(0-49) (8 species); RFC, 0.357 to 0.707(50-99) (9 species); RFC 0.714 to 0.957(100-140) (11 species) (Table 2). According to this ethnoveterinary records, the majority of plants in the third group were reported with high medicinal potential. The highest values were recorded for  Artemisia afra, Aloe marlothii (0.98) used in the form for Coughing, influenza, Fever and TB. Other high RFC species were Aloe aborescens, Citrus limon, Terminalia sericea  Lippia javanica, Pterocarpus angolensis, Tarchonanthus camphoratus, Senna italica.

Individual versus combination use

Table 4 most common combinations

Preparations of the remedies constituted 8 individual extracts from 8 species depending on the infection and 27 combinations  with 12 species were recorded  5 species with  one indigenous species across different municipalities (Table 4).

Species that were used individually include Artemisia afra, Terminalia sericea, Ozoroa Sphaerocarpa, Schotiabrachy petala, Geigeria aspera , Maerua angolensis , Lippia javanica , Pterocarpus angolensis, Sutherlandia frutescens, Aloe aborescens, Drimia elata , Zanthoxylum capense , Elephantorrhiza Elephantina  , Citrus limon , Dicoma anomala were used individually and in combinations. Only prominent combination and common or well known combination were recorded. Traditional health practitioners prefer combinations generally as they say it prevent feather infection and reduced toxicity in those plant that have toxicity.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Qualitative ethno veterinary analysis

Fidelity level

Plant species such as Zanthoxylum capense and Alepidea amatymbica  were not necessarily important in management of respiratory infections due to a low number of use reports [38].Plants with one use report such as Syzygium cordatum were not computed for Fidelity Level (FL) due to very few use-report in respiratory. Important plant species with high FL values and with a considerable number of use-report were Artemisia afra(1), Aloe marlothii (0,98) , Citrus limon (0,96) Aloe aborescens (0,95) and Terminalia sericea (0,94).These plants need further antimicrobial studies against pathogens of respiratory infections.

Use value

The plants with the highest Use Value (UV) were considered important due to high use-reports. Despite being considered important, [38] noted that the UV cannot distinguish if the plant is used for single or multiple purposes. Despite that, the FL values indicated the importance of plant species to various respiratory infections.

CONCLUSION

The study suggests that there is a vast amount of indigenous knowledge on medicinal plant and this knowledge plays an important role for the treatment of different ailments in the study districts. The healers have a very high intention to keep their traditional knowledge secrete and none of them was ready to transfer their knowledge either freely or on incentive bases to other people; they need to con­vey their knowledge only to their selected scions after getting very old. The knowledge is passed from gen­eration to generation in an oral manner. Without being properly documented this information it could easily be lost or distorted. Commonly reported plant species need to be tested for their antimicrobial activities in vitro and validated their active ingredients in order to recommend effective preparations and treatments to this community. In particular, the bioactive compounds found in plants can be used as a source of new antiviral agents. These compounds form the basis for drug discovery that may combat various diseases in humans and animals can be industrialized across the world. The use of natural products in drug discovery is a lead for finding new novel antiviral agents that can produce effective and curative agents for opportunistic viral infections.

Further Study

Further research and collaboration with local communities are necessary to fully appreciate the vast wealth of knowledge and practices involving plant use worldwide.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

All traditional health practitioners who participated in this study are highly thanked for sharing their knowledge.

Authors’ contributions

Author read the final manuscript and agreed to its submission.

Funding

No funding

Availability of data and materials

Not Applicable.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Verbal consent was taken from participants before carrying out the study as most if the participants were illiterate. Present study was carefully designed with strict compliance of bio-ethics.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The author declare that they have no competing interests.

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Table 2 of medicinal plants use for Covid 19 and other related infection used before covid-19