In vitro antimalarial activity of some Nigerian medicinal plants

Abstract

Malaria remains one of the major public health problems in sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria in particular. In recent time, the problem was exacerbated by increased development of resistance by the major etiological agent for human malaria Plasmodium falciparum to malaria treatment drugs. Therefore, novel antimalarial drugs entities are imperative. The in vitro antimalarial activity of eight medicinal plants was evaluated. The evaluation was done using World Health Organisation (WHO) Mark III test method and the plant materials were extracted sequentially using water-ethanol, hexane, petroleum ether and chloroform extracts. The eight plant evaluated include A. africanus, C. farisona, T. macroptera, B. buonopozense, C. papaya, C. citrates, K. senegalensis and H. floribunda. The results obtained have shown that each of the tested plants possesses at least one very active (< 5 µg/ml) or active (5 µg/ml