Parasitology

Biography

Biography: Aderinola, Adeyinka Aderonke

Abstract

Malaria caused by the parasite-P.falciparum is an acute disease which kill an estimated 863,000 people per-year according to WHO report. Malaria chemotherapy failure is beginning to give medical practitioners concern. The continuing spread of multi-drug resistant P.falciparum-malaria now poses a major threat to the tropics. Natural-products are the source of the two most important-drugs currently available to treat severe falciparum-malaria , quinine and artemisinin derivatives, the development of these two important-drugs and utilization of many plants traditionally in various part of the world triggered the search for new, effective antimalarial drugs of natural origin. In this study, Swiss-albino mice ranging from 25-35g were used. The mice were randomly assigned into treatments and controls (negative and positive-control) with five mice per group. Plasmodium-berghei obtained from Nigeria Institute of Medical Research, Lagos were used as donor. Each mouse received 0.1ml of diluted-blood containing 1x 106 P.berghei infected erythrocyte by intraperitoneal-route. Three hours after inoculation of the parasite, the mice in the three treatment groups received the extracts of Newbouldia laevis and cocos nucifera in doses of 200, 400, 600 mg/kg orally for four consecutive-days while the negative and the positive control received normal-saline and 25mg/kg chloroquine-phosphate orally daily for four-consecutive days. On the fifth day, blood sample was collected from tail snip of each mouse, thin smears were prepared, stained with 10%- Giemsa-solution and examined under microscope with an oil immersion objective of 100x magnification power to evaluate percentage suppression. The extract treated mice (200, 400, 600mg/kg) showed decreased parasitemia-level to a highly significant level (p< 0.05).