Evaluation of Antibacterial Activity of Some Medicinal Plants Used in the Treatment of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) in Guinean Traditional Medicine

Microbial infections such as sexually transmitted infections are very common in Guinea. Due to the high cost of conventional medicines, the pharmacopeia along with the traditional medicine remains the main medical resources for most of the Guinean populations. An ethnobotanical survey of some medicinal plants used in the traditional treatment of sexual infectious diseases in the district of Kankan led to the inventory of 33 plant species belonging to 17 families. All of the tested extracts were inactive against Salmonella typhimurium. Except the extracts of Spondias mombin and Markhamia tomentosa and Anogeissus leiocarpus which showed the highest antibacterial (62, 5 µg/ml) effect against Bacillus cereus and/or Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus, all the other extracts exhibited a narrow spectrum of antibacterial activity. This study supports partly the traditional claims of these plants as a remedy to infectious diseases.