Background: Traditional medicine is still playing an important role in meeting the basic healthcare requirement of the peoples in different parts of Ethiopia. There is no published review that clearly indicates documented medicinal plants available in different parts of the country used for treating viral and fungal infections. Currently viral epidemics with high mortality and morbidity like SARS COV-2 are emerging. Screening of promising drug from plant source is vital to control such viral and fungal infections. In addition, indicating the most commonly used parts of the plant and their route of administration will help for further drug formulation studies. This review aimed to present an indication of the ethnomedicinal plants used for the treatment of fungal and viral infections

Methods: The databases (Google scholar, pub med, hinari, and research gate) were searched for published articles on the ethnobotany of medicinal plants used to treat viral and fungal infection in Ethiopia without restriction in the methodology and year of publication. Viral infections,2 fungal infections, Anti-fungal and anti-viral activity, ethnobotany, Ethiopia, and medicinal plants were the key search terms. Studies that didn’t have complete ethnobotanical data that did not address viral and fungal infection as a disease treated traditionally by the practitioners were excluded.

Result: A total of 249 articles were produced by database search. After amendment for exclusion criteria and duplicates, 15 articles were found appropriate for the review. The majority of the studies were qualitative and others were mixed type in nature. All of the medicinal plants traditionally used to treat viral and fungal infections in Ethiopia were not scientifically confirmed. Out of the 95 identified plants, 40.8% were herbs and from the plant parts used (43.9%) and (21.1%) were leaves and roots respectively. The majority, (48.8%) of the plant remedies were given orally. Rabies and Tinea capitis constitute the highest percentage of viral and fungal infections treated by traditional medicinal plants followed by hepatitis and Tinea corporis respectively.

Conclusions: Various plants have been used to treat viral and fungal infections. Information  obtained from this review serves as a guide to discover novel antiviral and antifungal agents from plants. Therefore, it is advisable for field researchers to properly identify, document, conserve and conduct efficacy and safety studies on such medicinal plants in animal models.

Keywords: Review, Traditional medicine, Ethnobotany, Viral and fungal infection