Effect of After-Treatment of Strychnos ligustrina Extract on The Percentage of Parasitemia in Mice Infected with Plasmodium berghei

¹ Department of Animal Diseases and Veterinary Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
² Department of Anantomy, Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
³ Department of Forest Product, Faculty of Forestry, IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: umicahyaningsih@yahoo.co.id

Abstract

Antimalarial treatment is usually given up to 4 days which reduces the number of parasitemia, but malaria can still occur. Therefore, a study to determine the percentage of parasitemia after drug administration is important. Strychnos ligustrina has been investigated in vitro to inhibit the growth of Plasmodium berghei and reduced the number of parasitemia during 4 days of treatment. The purpose of this study was to determine the percentage of parasitemia in mice infected with P. berghei after 4 day treatments with S. ligustrina extract. S. ligustrina was extracted by maceration method using Ethanol 25%, 50%, and 75% (E25, E50, E75, respectively), and Aquades (EA). This study used 91 male mice divided into 5 groups: E25, E50, E70, EA, each extract consisted of 3 doses (200, 400 and 800 mg/kg BW) and Drug Control (DC). For Drug Control (DC) was using a combination of Dihy-droartemisin dose 25 mg/kg BW and piperaquine phosphate dose 197 mg/kg BW. Mice infected with 1x 106 P. berghei intraperitoneally. Blood samples were taken on day 5 after treatment with S. ligustrina extract for 8 days (days 1-8 after treatment). Preparation of blood smear was stained with Giemsa to calculate the percentage of parasitemia by counting the number of infected erythrocytes divided by 500 erythrocytes and multiplied by 100%. The percentages of parasitemia day 7 with 3 kinds of doses of 200, 400, 800 mg/kg body weight in E25 (11,54%, 2.60% and 11.54%, respectively), in E50 (3.44%, 0%, 3.81%, respectively), in E75 (19.25%, 0.73 %, 9.75 %, respectively), in EA (0.77%, 4.48%, 8.67%, respectively) and in DC 2.10%. At the stage of schizogony, which is one of the life cycles of malaria found in the liver, this parasite is not visible in the blood circulation. The results showed that P. berghei was still found in the blood of mice after administration of S. ligustrina extracts up to 4 days in all treatments with different percentages of parasitemia. Based on these results it is recommended that the administration of drugs with S. ligustrina extract as antimalarial drugs for more than 4 days.