A study of the effect of ascorbic acid on the antiplasmodial activity of artemether in Plasmodium berghei infected mice.

Abstract

The main aim of this work was to study the effect of ascorbic acid on the efficacy of artemether against plasmodium berghei infected mice. The study was divided into 2 phases and a total of 40 Swiss albino wistars mice of average weight 20g were used in all, 10 for phase 1 and the remaining 30 for phase 2. The phase 1 was mainly to determine the peak parasitaemia in order to estimate the day to commence drug treatment in phase 2. In phase 2 of the study, the mice were divided into 6 treatment groups: artemether alone, artemether with low dose ascorbic acid, artemether with high dose ascorbic acid, low dose ascorbic acid alone, high dose ascorbic acid alone and the control group. The study showed that ascorbic acid, in high dose antagonized the antiplasmodial effect of artemether. Average % suppression in parasitaemia was found to be 51.4±32.21 as against that observed for artemether alone at 60.3±18.70. The study also showed that high ascorbic acid can slow down the rate of development of malarial parasitaemia in infected mice and these results were found to be statistically significant. In conclusion, coadministration of ascorbic acid may reduce the antimalarial potency of artemether, an artemisinin derivative and high dose of ascorbic acid may also suppress parasite growth.