Role of Medicinal Herbs in Sustaining Begomovirus Populations in Burkina Faso: Therapeutic Implications and Ecological Insights

Medicinal herbs occupy an important place in the treatment of diseases in Burkina Faso. However, they live near crops which are strongly impacted by diseases with typical symptoms of begomovirus infection. These medicinal herbs may host these viruses, highlighting the need for further study. The purpose of this study was to inventory the medicinal herbs hosts of begomovirus. For this, a survey carried out among the elderly using semi-structured interviews based on a questionnaire. This allowed to inventory a wide diversity of herbs used in the treatment of diseases with Heliotropium indicum and Euphorbia hirta being the most cited with use values of 0.38 and 0.47, respectively. A complex network of sicknesses-herbs association was observed with some herbs used for the treatment of several sicknesses. A second survey was conducted in several localities in Burkina Faso and symptomatic plants were collected for analysis based on polymerization chain reaction to detect begomoviruses. In addition to the survey findings, our results indicate a significant diversity of medicinal herbs that host begomoviruses including the pepper yellow vein Mali virus, the tomato leaf curl Ghana virus and the cotton leaf curl Gezira virus. These results highlight the role of medicinal herbs in maintaining begomovirus populations in Burkina Faso and more largely in the word. It is therefore necessary to take medicinal plants into account in the epidemiological surveillance of plant infecting virus.