Department of Animal Biology and Conservation Science

Abstract

The gametocytocidal effect of antimalarial drugs has become important in malaria research owing to the global quest to eradicate the disease. In Ghana and most parts of Africa, people still depend on herbal medications despite advances in western medicine. However, these drugs lack the necessary scientific assessment. The IC50s of 10 known herbal antimalarial drugs on the Ghanaian market were determined. The development of sexual stages of the Plasmodium falciparum was monitored and the growth inhibitory effect of the herbal drugs on gametocytes was also assessed in vitro. All tested herbal drugs showed either high activity (IC50<10μg/ml) or moderate activity (10 μg/ml<IC50<50 μg/ml) on asexual stages. Top fever showed the lowest IC50 value of 0.06 ± 0.028 μg/ml, Kingdom herbal: 11.07 ± 1.010 μg/ml, Rooter mixture: 2.80 ± 0.363 μg/ml, Class malakare: 0.35 ± 0.135 μg/ml, Masada: 0.25 ± 0.035 μg/ml, Angel herbal: 1.31 ± 0.160 μg/ml, Yafo mixture: 0.53 ± 0.065 μg/ml, Herbaquin: 5.86 ± 0.540 μg/ml, Adutwumwa malamix: 7.49 ± 0.248 μg/ml and Taabea showed the highest IC50 value of 11.58 ± 2.484 μg/ml. On day 14 parasites treated with IC10 of Angel herbal mixture had the highest late stage gametocytemia of 8.99% and Rooter mixture had the lowest late stage gametocytemia of 0.58%. Five herbal drugs showed > 50% growth inhibition of early stage gametocytes at 7 μg/ml. Only Masada herbal gave > 50% growth inhibition of late stage gametocytes at 7 μg/ml. Though all the herbal drugs were potent antimalarials, only Masada and Yafo fever showed strong gametocytocidal effects and can therefore be recommended as an alternative to orthodox antimalarial treatment.