Ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants used for prevention or alleviation of symptoms of Covid-19 in Bulgaria. Part 2: The most used medicinal plants

Abstract

This paper is a second part of an ethnobotanical survey among phytotherapy users. The present work aimed to identify the medicinal plants used for prevention or alleviation of symptoms of COVID-19 disease in Northeastern Bulgaria. The other goal is a comparison of listed medicinal plants with the results of other ethnobotanical surveys in Bulgaria, as well with the accessible scientific data about the possibility to use listed plants in the case of Covid-19. The results revealed the significance of particular species for local people. The comparison with other ethnobotanical surveys in Bulgaria showed some peculiarities, due to the selection of the informants and to the goal of the questionnaire. Nowadays phytomedicine users rely not only to preserved traditional medicine, but also to sources as internet, mass media and specialized literature. The provided by us brief online review disclosed the existence of accessible scientific data about possibilities to use some medicinal plants for prevention or alleviation of symptoms of Covid-19 disease. The results of the survey supported folk medicine knowledge and showed the impact of the new informative sources on attitudes of the respondents. From this point of view, the responsibility of the institutions is the provision of information about safety and correct medicinal plants` utilization.