An ethno veterinary survey of invasive alien medicinal plants used in the treatment and management of Skin infections on Animals in Sekhukhune District, Limpopo, South Africa.

  • Unique Paper ID: 165595
  • PageNo: 2687-2705
  • Abstract:
  • Background: Several recent studies have documented the ethnobotanical uses of alien plants used in South Africa, in particular those used for medicinal purposes. However, these reports did make about invasive alien plants did not cover the area of Sekhukhune and use for animals. Furthermore, the existing records on the status of the occurrence of these plants in the country are not up to date. Objectives: The aim of this article is to present information on the current knowledge regarding the status of invasive alien plant species in Sekhukhune and to discuss their ethno veterinary uses in skin infections and safety. Methods: Interviews were taken to obtain information from 35 participants. Quantitative and qualitative methods including fidelity level (FL), Frequency of citation (FC), Use-value (UV) Family importance value (FIV), Informer consensus(IC), Jaccard indices (JI),Relative frequency of citation (RFC) and Chi-square test were applied. Medicinal plants uses are also compared with other national and international publications. Results: A total of 39 species 24 families, are documented. Although these plants are invasive in nature, they are utilised for a variety of purposes including food, treatment of Skin infections on animals and human, medical conditions and cosmetics uses. However, some of the species are reported to be poisonous to both animals and humans, with a majority of the plants causing skin irritation. Most of these species are widely distributed throughout the country and most of them originated from America, Europe and Asia. Although a number of reports on the occurrence of invasive alien plants have been generated, the information therein has not yet been published for veterinary use on skin infections. Conclusion: The present survey revealed the importance of several alien plants used to treat skin infections on animals and sometimes human by the local communities of Sekhukhune, Limpopo South Africa. The available literature supported the evidence of plant dermatological properties. There is dire need to create awareness among local, government and scientific communities for the preservation of medicinal species, biological control of alien plants and ethnomedicinal knowledge in Sekhukhune, Limpopo South Africa.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{165595,
        author = {Jacobus Kori Madisha},
        title = {An ethno veterinary survey of invasive alien medicinal plants used in the treatment and management of Skin infections on Animals in Sekhukhune District, Limpopo, South Africa.},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {11},
        number = {1},
        pages = {2687-2705},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=165595},
        abstract = {Background: Several recent studies have documented the ethnobotanical uses of alien plants used in South Africa, in particular those used for medicinal purposes. However, these reports did make about invasive alien plants did not cover the area of Sekhukhune and use for animals. Furthermore, the existing records on the status of the occurrence of these plants in the country are not up to date. 
Objectives: The aim of this article is to present information on the current knowledge regarding the status of invasive alien plant species in Sekhukhune and to discuss their ethno veterinary uses in skin infections and safety. 
Methods: Interviews were taken to obtain information from 35 participants. Quantitative and qualitative methods including fidelity level (FL), Frequency of citation (FC), Use-value (UV) Family importance value (FIV), Informer consensus(IC), Jaccard indices (JI),Relative frequency of citation (RFC) and Chi-square test were applied. Medicinal plants uses are also compared with other  national and international publications.
Results: A total of 39 species 24 families, are documented. Although these plants are invasive in nature, they are utilised for a variety of purposes including food, treatment of Skin infections on animals and human, medical conditions and cosmetics uses.
 However, some of the species are reported to be poisonous to both animals and humans, with a majority of the plants causing skin irritation. Most of these species are widely distributed throughout the country and most of them originated from America, Europe and Asia. Although a number of reports on the occurrence of invasive alien plants have been generated, the information therein has not yet been published for veterinary use on skin infections. 
Conclusion: The present survey revealed the importance of several   alien plants used to treat skin infections on animals and sometimes human by the local communities of Sekhukhune, Limpopo South Africa. The available literature supported the evidence of plant dermatological properties. There is dire need to create awareness among local, government and scientific communities for the preservation of medicinal species, biological control of alien plants and ethnomedicinal knowledge in Sekhukhune, Limpopo South Africa.},
        keywords = {Skin Infections, Invasive alien plants, Wounds healing; microbial infections.},
        month = {March},
        }

Cite This Article

Madisha, J. K. (2025). An ethno veterinary survey of invasive alien medicinal plants used in the treatment and management of Skin infections on Animals in Sekhukhune District, Limpopo, South Africa.. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 11(1), 2687–2705.

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