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BACKGROUND/AIM: Some of the antifungal drugs used in the current treatments regime are responding to antimicrobial resistance. In rural areas of Southern Tanzania, indigenous people use antifungal drugs alone or together with medicinal plants to curb the effects of antibiotic resistance. This study documented ethnobotanical information of medicinal plants used for managing fungal infections in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania and further assess their safety. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ethnobotanical survey was conducted in Makete and Mufindi districts between July 2014 and December 2015 using semi-structured questionnaires followed by two focus group discussions to verify respondents' information. Cytotoxicity study was conducted on extracts of collected plants using brine shrimp lethality test and analyzed by MS Excel 2013 program. RESULTS: value 12.94 µg/ml. The ethnobotanical survey correlated well with documented literature from elsewhere about the bioactivity of most plants. CONCLUSIONS: The ethnobotanical survey has revealed that traditional healers are rich of knowledge to build on for therapeutic studies. Most of the plants are safe for use; and thus can be considered for further studies on drug discovery.
Mbunde et al. (Sun,) studied this question.