ETHNO-BOTANICAL STUDY OF PLANTS USED FOR TREATING MALARIA IN A FOREST: SAVANNA MARGIN AREA, EAST REGION, CAMEROON

Ethno-botanical surveys were conducted in Andom, a village situated in a forest-savanna contact zone from December 2011 to April 2012 with the aim to gather plants that are used in traditional medicine. The method used is direct interviews conducted among adult people, mainly women. The 36 persons interviewed prescribed a total of 219 citations and 94 recipes of 59 plant species distributed in 49 genera and 27 families in the treatment of malaria or fever. About 51.6 % of the citations are made of combination of two, three; four, five, six, or seven plant species. Some plant species cited by Andom people are well recognized for their activity against Plasmodium, is a credibility index which can be attributed to the pharmacopoeia of those people. It also illustrates the efficiency of the method used to identify medicinal plants of the Andom village. Future studies should be directed towards implementing strategies and programmes to identify active chemical substances of other plant species which have not yet been investigated for their chemical and anti-malarial activities in the region.