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ABSTRACT
Moringa oleifera leaf is useful for managing malaria in tropical and subtropical regions.This study aimed to investigate the acute toxicity and antimalarial activity of Moringa oleifera leaf methanol extract in mice.For this study, a total of thirty-one (31) male Swiss albino mice (6-8weeks old, 20-25g) were used for both the acute toxicity (6 mice) and antimalarial (25 mice) testing of the sample. For the acute toxicity study, there was no physical nor behavioral changes in mice administered the extract at 2 g/kg b.wt. Of the 3 mice in the group, only one mouse died within 48 hrs of administering the extract. As the study was done using the OECD method, tessting wasn’t done at lower doses. For the antimalarial study, three different doses (100, 250 and 500 mg/kg b.wt) were studied. The mice were randomly divided into 5 groups of 5 mice each and labeled groups 1-5. Mice in group 1-5 were infected with 1 x 105 P. berghei intraperitoneally. After 4 hrs of infection, group 1 mice were administered the vehicle (normal saline), this served as negative control. Mice in group 2 were administered 25 mg/kg b.wt. Chloroquine whereas mice in groups 3-5 were administered graded doses of the extract.Administration was done once daily for 4 days. On days 4 and 10, smears were made from the lateral tail vein of the mice in each group. Results showed that increasing doses of the extract caused a dose-dependent suppression in parasite levels in comparison with negative control group. Higher doses of 100 and 250 mg/kg b. wt. decreased parasitemia in a manner which was significantly different from negative control group (P < 0.001). A similar observation was made for mice survival as mice treated with Moringa oleifera had a significantly increased survival as compared to the negative control group (P < 0.05). The result of the study proves that Moringa oleifera leaf has an excellent antimalarial activity and justifies its use in the management of Malaria.
