ETHNOMEDICINAL EVALUATION OF SOME ANTIMALARIAL PLANTS USED IN ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The use of herbs and plant materials have always been popular in the treatment of febrile illness, and it has grown over time in malaria endemic areas. As many modern drugs have met resistance, local herb sellers and users have taken to combination of two or more herbs or plant materials to enhance synergistic efficacy and fight off resistant strain of Plasmodium. Structured questionnaires were administered in four towns in each of the three senatorial districts of Ondo state to know the most commonly used herbs and the results suggested Mango (Mangifera indica) Siam weed (Chromolaena odorata) and Guava (Psidium guajava) as most preferred by the people. An in vivo experiment was conducted to validate the efficacy of the mentioned plants. Mice weighing between 45-50g were weighed and innoculated with Plasmodium berghei and left for 28days, they were examined on day 7, 14, 21 and 28 to monitor the parasitaemia level, the mice were treated with the herbs (500mg/kg body weight) at different concentrations of 0.01%, 0.05% and 0.1%, each having three replicates. The herbs efficacies were also examined 4, 8 and 12 days after treatment. The suppressive effects of the herbs showed that at concentration 0.01%, Siam plant extract had the lowest antiplasmodial effect with 44.43% clearance rate, while the extracts of the three herbs combined had the highest efficacy of 61.13%. At concentration 0.05%, Guava leaf extract had the lowest suppressive effect with 52.80% while the combination of the extracts of Mango bark and Guava leaf had the highest suppressive effect with 70.87% which is closely followed by the combination of extracts of Mango bark, Siam plant and Guava leaf with 69.47% efficacy. At the highest concentration (0.1%) Guava leaf extract had the lowest efficacy 72.23% while the extract of the three herbs combined had the highest suppressive effects 90.30%. In conclusion, the results showed that the treatments were dosage dependent and combinations of the herbs showed synergistic efficacies.