Antimalarial activities of alkaloid-rich fraction of stem bark extract of Lannea acida in mice infected with Plasmodium berghei

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that has plagued mankind for ages and continues to be most common and deadly parasitic disease in the world. The search for novel antimalarial compounds has been required by Plasmodium falciparum resistance to standard antimalarial drugs. Plants derivative are significant sources of biologically active metabolites which have potentials for new antimalarial drugs’ discovery. Meanwhile a number of alkaloids have been successfully used for the treatment of malaria. In this study, alkaloid-rich fraction of stem bark extract of Lannea acida was evaluated for possible antiplasmodial activity, against Plasmodium berghei, a chloroquine-sensitive protozoan. Suppressive activity of the fraction was examined for five consecutive days with the extract doses and chloroquine as the control drug, curative experimental groups were infected for five days prior to extract treatment, while the prophylactic groups were pretreated daily for five days before inoculation with 1×10 chloroquine-sensitive Plasmodium berghei intraperitoneally. The control group was administered with 10 ml distilled water/kg; 200 and 400 mg extract/kg weight were administered to the experimental groups, and chloroquine 5 mg/kg body weight respectively. All doses of the fraction produced significant, dose-dependent, chemo suppressive activity against the parasite in the suppressive, curative and prophylactic tests compared with chloroquine treated mice. The extract treatment also casused an elongation in the mean survival time of treated mice compared to the untreated mice.