Estudo Etnobotânico e Farmacognóstico de plantas antimaláricas de uso popular na comunidade Céu do Mapiá, Pauini - AM

Abstract

Malaria remains a serious public health problem in Brazil. The protozoa of the genus Plasmodium, the causative agent of this disease, has developed resistance to antimalarial drugs, which makes research programs, to identify new drugs that can replace the current, extremely important and urgent. The search for new drugs from plants is now a real hope for patients with serious diseases, such as malaria, as well as to improve the quality of public health. The ethnobotany research, directed the study of medicinal plants, can be the starting point for the development of new drugs from plant resources, which is the method of selecting plants that most likely favors the discovery of new bioactive substances. The present study aimed to conduct a study ethnobotany, medicinal plants used to treat malaria in riverine village Céu do Mapiá and perform phytochemical screening of the species Abuta sandwithiana. The community studied belongs to the municipality of Pauini and is located within the National Forest Purus. The informants in the study were selected through the snowball technique, semi-structured interviews were conducted, participant observation, guided tours, collecting botanical material of plants cited by respondents and taxonomic identification of these species. The species Abuta sandwithiana was selected to perform the phytochemical screening, because besides this display a high degree of importance to the people studied, no previous records of studies of this nature with the plant were found. Phytochemical screening was performed hydroalcoholic and aqueous species extract, performing tests for the major classes of active chemical compounds. Were held 40 interviews, describing 52 species in 30 plant families, including 21 species used specifically for the treatment of malaria and 36 used for the treatment of diseases associated with malaria, some of which are used for two purposes. The screening results were positive for alkaloids, organic acids, phenols, anthocyanin glycosides, saponins, sterols, triterpenes, gums, mucilages and aminogroups. These results indicate the therapeutic potential of the studied species and justify the continuation of studies with the plant. The ethnobotanical survey conducted in this study can serve as a basis for the selection of other species, in addition that has been studied, for future phytochemical investigation, because they have strong indications of therapeutic action, according to the traditional knowledge and secondly by having further few or no studies to prove this.