Anthelminthic Activities of Drinkable Suspension of Alafia barteri’s Extracts on Heligmosomoides bakeri (Nematoda, Heligmosomatidae)

Abstract

Resistance of helminths parasites to synthetic medicine leaded the International community to look for news methods of controlling gastrointestinal helminths like the use of medicinal plants with anthelminthic properties. The aim of this study was to evaluate in situ the anthelmintic activity of the drinkable solution of Alafia barteri (aqueous and ethanolic extracts) on Heligmosomoides bakeri. Mice were orally infected with L3 infective larva. After the prepatent period, animals whose qualitative analysis revealed the presence of H. bakeri eggs in their feces were randomly divided into 5 groups of 5 animals each. Group 0 served as negative control and received distilled water or DMSO 1.24% depending on the test. Group 1 was the positive control and received a single dose of 15 mg / kg bwt of Albendazole (0.28 mg/ml). The three others groups (2, 3 and 4) received the treatment with plant products at the dose of 980, 1960 and 3920 mg / kg bwt respectively during 7 days. The efficacy of A. barteri was evaluated through the fecal egg count reduction (FECR), the total worm count reduction (TWCR) and through the development of eggs taken from treated animals. Results showed that, effects of treatments were non-dose dependent. Ethanolic extract exhibited the highest anthelminthic activity in the reduction of the fecal eggs (91.36 % reduction) during the second week after treatment with 1960 mg / kg bwt. With the aqueous extract, we observed the best FECR of 87.41 % in the same dose. The best TWCR (89.89%) was observed at 980 mg / kg bwt with the aqueous extract. The minimum larval development rate (LDR) was exhibited with ethanolic extract (51.48 %).  From the global results obtained, we can say that A. barteri has compounds with vermicidal anthelminthic properties, particularly with ethanolic extract.