Chimps, healers use same herbs

Jan 11, 2007

RESEARCHERS at Kibale National Park have discovered that chimps eat plants similar to the ones used by traditional healers to treat malaria and diarrhoea.

By Gerald Tenywa

RESEARCHERS at Kibale National Park have discovered that chimps eat plants similar to the ones used by traditional healers to treat malaria and diarrhoea.

“The chimps and human beings around Kibale use similar plants to overcome sickness,” Sabrina Kreif, a researcher, said. She was speaking at Makerere University’s Faculty of Science at a ceremony to launch a memorandum of cooperation between Uganda Wildlife Authority and French institutions.

In her five-year study at Kanyawara research station, located on the edge of Kibale, Krief found that chimps carefully select and consume plants like mululuza, which have little nutritive value.

These plants, however, have medical properties that help the chimps to overcome malaria and diarrhoea, as well as to expel worms from their intestines, Krief said.

Her research included collecting and analysing chimp dung and urine.

“I had to examine the dung to find out the plants in their diet and then extract the active components,” she said.

She also monitored the behaviour of the chimps to find out if there was any improvement each time sick chimps ate the plants.

She also found that traditional healers in the area use the same plants.

In some cases, the chimps ate the bark of certain trees, which helped them to overcome parasites that cause diarrhoea. “It was stunning to see that the traditional healers use the same plants to treat the diseases,” she said. “The studies on great apes, which are the closest relatives to humans, will help us to discover plants with medicinal properties.”

Kanyawara has a group of chimps that have been habituated for two decades and are easy to subsequently monitor. Habituation is the process through which they get used to humans but keep their wild nature.

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